Just Cause
by KillingEdge
Summary: Ahri, The Nine Tailed Fox, has lied, cheated, and murdered her way towards physical humanity. The League of Legends offers potential redemption, but getting there is something else entirely.
1. The Specter's Champion

**This is a sequel to Merciless, an Ahri Origin story. I would urge you to read it first, to clarify various things in this story. **

* * *

Silence.

It was the kind silence that permeates the skin down through the bones to the very soul, where every heartbeat is a crash of thunder, and every breath is a gale force windstorm.

Pink light filtered through the girl's closed eyelids. She slowly opened them.

The world was drowned in white light from the sun, hanging high in the vast azure sky overhead. She was lying on her back in a few inches of warm, gently flowing water that caused her black hair to fan out in wispy strands around her head.

Slowly, she sat up, steady heartbeat resonating in her ears.

A vast, shimmering sheet of water stretched out to touch the horizon on every side of her. It was flat and uniform, and shadows of the clouds above danced along its shining surface.

Where the hell was she?

She recalled nothing of what had happened immediately before she had awoken. She could remember only vague scraps, flashes. The memory of a sun that had been oppressively hot, beating down on her as she walked, of tired legs and no water . . .

Had she died? _After all that's happened,_ the girl mused, _that would be quite anticlimactic. _

She got to her feet, head aching dully. She casually glanced around again.

"If this is some sort of afterlife," She said aloud. "Then it's not much to look at."

_"Apologies, milady," _a low, sly voice said. _"That my domain is not to your liking." _

The voice resounded in her head, but was not heard with her ears. Curious, the girl responded. "Your domain?" She asked. "And just who might you be?"

_"I? I am known as Orochi, the lonely inhabitant of this . . . place. And to answer your question, no, you are not dead. Not yet, anyway."  
_

She put her hands on her hips. "Then why am I here? Wherever 'here' is?"

_"I have brought you here because you are of great interest to me, Ahri, the Nine Tailed Fox," _

Ahri was vaguely surprised that the voice knew her name as well as her self-given title. "You know me?" She inquired.

_"Yes . . .yes, I know you. You are known to many of us . . . And I have been watching you closely."_

"The last person to say that tried to kill me. I don't suppose that's why you brought me here?"

_"Kill? No, no, that would be most unproductive . . . no . . . no harm will come to you here. But I would ask for your assistance."_

"I don't-" Ahri began.

_"Before you make your decision," _The voice called Orochi broke in. _"Look down for a moment."_

Puzzled, Ahri complied, and looked at the water flowing around her legs. In it, she saw the familiar image of her reflection.

_"Tell me, Ahri. What do you see? Or more accurately, what _don't _you see?" _The voice laughed inside her head.

Ahri gazed at the water, not understanding the question. Then it hit her. Her ears – the fox ears atop her head, were not there. Nor were the whisker markings on her face, nor her nine white tails.

"What is this?" Ahri demanded.

_"Is this not what you most desire?" _Orochi asked. _"This is could be the future. Your future."_

"You . . . can see the future?" Ahri asked incredulously.

_"Not as such, no. I can see glimpses of what may be, but never of what will be. The future is not set. You know that better than most, I should think. But whether or not this comes to pass . . ." _A cloud of smoke began to coalesce in the air before Ahri, causing her to recoil instinctively. A vaguely humanoid shape began to take for within it, and it pointed at the water at Ahri's feet. _". . . is entirely up to you."_

Unnerved but unafraid, Ahri straightened and faced the smoke cloud. "What do you mean?"

Though the roiling cloud had no discernible facial expressions, Ahri could swear she could sense it smiling, and it sent chills running up her spine. _"I have it within my power to grant you the form of true humanity that you so desire. Help me, and it is yours."_

"You can make me human?" Ahri demanded of the smoke cloud. "Just what are you, anyway?"

She felt the thing smile again. _"What do you think I am, mortal?"  
_

She shrugged. "If I had to guess, I'd say a god."

_"A god . . . yes, I have been called that before, by a great many." _ The cloud said in a bemused tone. _"Long ago. Many have forgotten me since then. But I care not. I am still powerful."_

"You mentioned helping you before?" Ahri asked, crossing her arms and shifting her weight to one leg.

_"Ah yes, apologies. It is a task you'll find simple, I suspect. Simply continue on your path, young Ahri, and just know that I will be with you, following in your shadow."_

"That's it?"

_"That's it. I wish to see the world through your eyes. I . . . will enjoy it immensely." _Orochi cackled in her mind again. There was something in his tone that made Ahri uneasy. Something dark and menacing, but she shrugged it off. The task was simple enough. She'd be human, and she wouldn't have to kill for it. That was more than enough for her.

In front of her, the cloud that was Orochi held out an arm that trailed wisps of smoke. Resting in the palm was a red gem. Inside tendrils of the same black smoke that comprised Orochi swirled.

_"Take this as a token of our agreement. Hold it, and become my champion."_

Ahri gently plucked it from his grasp and let it roll into her palm. Despite its appearance, it felt cold and hard like an ordinary stone. She closed her fingers around it and brought it close to her face, before looking up at Orochi.

"What would you have your champion do?"


	2. Forward

Ahri slowly awoke to a blinding headache. She was dimly aware that she was lying in the shade of a great tree, her back against its trunk. She sat up and winced as pain shot through her skull like a bullet. With some effort, she raised a hand to massage her forehead.

She was weak, very weak. She had gone without water for days now, and she had severely miscalculated the distance to the next town.

She glanced around through eyes that were slits against the heat and brightness of the late summer sun. Not for the first time, she found herself having woken up with no indication as to how she had arrived at the present location.

A bad habit, that.

With a groan, she stood up. She'd have to find water, or that would be the least of her worries. Just as she was wondering exactly where she'd find water on this wide, empty plain, one of the ears atop her head reflexively twitched to focus on a sound.

It was the sound of running water. Hardly believing her luck, she followed the noise to a shallow stream nearby.

She crossed her arms and closed her eyes. "I don't believe in coincidences," She said to no one in particular. "And this would be too good to be one even if I did."

A memory came back to her then, one of a conversation with a cloud of smoke on a vast, shallow sea. Had that been a dream? It seemed too vivid for that.

She reached into a pocket, and with a mild surprise pulled out a red gem with swirls of smoke inside. She lifted it up and gazed at it coolly. "I guess it wasn't a dream after all," She said in an almost bored tone. "You watching then, Orochi? Better get comfortable, 'cause I'm staying right here for while."

The stone flashed dimly as if in response, eliciting a smirk from Ahri.

She knelt by the stream and drank deeply from cupped hands.

She froze abruptly, a drop of water rolling off her chin. Something was behind her.

The sound of a twig snapping had her jumping to her feet in an instant and leveling her left palm, cloaked in sapphire flames, at the source before the water droplet could hit the ground.

A large, shirtless man walked into the clearing. To Ahri's surprise, he was also blindfolded, but seemed to know exactly where he was going.

"Be at ease," The man said. "I do not seek to harm you. You may put out your fire."  
Ahri lowered her arm but keyed him warily. How did he know she had readied a fire spell if he couldn't see?

"I a simply a weary traveler seeking a drink, the same as you." He walked to the stream and knelt to drink from it as Ahri had just done. He made no effort to remove his blindfold.

"You'll have to excuse me," Ahri said, crossing her arms. "Most of my dealings with strangers thus far have been less than cordial."

"Ah, I do not blame you. Trying times for us all, these." He bent to the water.

Ahri studied the blindfolded man and finally put two and two together. "You're blind." She remarked.

"And you have quite the gift for observation," He said with a chuckle.

Ahri ignored the sarcasm. "You're blind, and alone," She said. "Isn't it dangerous for you to be traveling? I mean, there's a war on!"

"A war?" the man asked, turning to the girl. "Surely you aren't referring to the Ionia-Noxus war?"

Ahri was confused as to what he was getting at. "Well," She said hesitantly. "Yeah."

"Are you not aware that that war ended several weeks ago?"

Ahri was dumbfounded. "Well, no, I guess I'm not."

"Strange, that you would know nothing of such an important event in your home City-State's history." The man remarked.

"The past few weeks have been . . . busy for me." She said simply. The man shrugged and turned his attention back to the stream.

"Ah, well, I may be blind, but there are other ways of seeing. And you are alone as well, are you not?"

"I am more than capable of defending myself. I have my spells."

"And I mine," He said. "Though I may not look it. Tell me, why are you so concerned for my well being?"

"A woman I once knew taught me that everyone should look out for others when they can. Far too many care for only themselves, these days." Ahri quoted.

"Ah, she is very wise indeed."

"She was." Ahri said wistfully.

"Oh, I see. I apologize."

"Forget it." Ahri said. "You couldn't know."

The man stood and turned to face Ahri. "I am Lee Sin," He said. "What, may I ask, brings you out here to the Ionian countryside?"  
Once, Ahri might have been reproachful, hesitant to divulge any information to this man. But her outlook on life had changed gradually and significantly in the past several months, and something told her she could trust this man.

"Well," She began. "I am searching for a place called the Institute of War. Do you know it?"

Lee Sin shook his head. "Alas, all too well I'm afraid. What could you possibly be seeking there?"

Ahri was ecstatic to find that he knew the place, but found she could not really answer his question. "I don't know," she said with mild surprise. "Actually, I don't even think I know what it _is,_ come to think of it.But I know I have to go there. At least, someone I know told me I should."

"Ah, the eagerness of youth. You seek this place, yet you do not even know its purpose. Come, let me tell you." With this, he turned and walked back towards the stream. Ahri dropped her arms and obliged, sitting beside the rushing water. "Several months ago, the Institute of War created the League of Legends, which is essentially a gathering of the mightiest heroes in Valoran, to pit them against each other in a series of battles in order to settle political disputes."

Ahri was shocked. "That's it? You mean to tell me that the League of Legends is just some giant gladiatorial arena?" She was fuming. "What a waste of-"

"Patience, girl, and let me explain." Lee Sin chided. Ahri obliged him but it did little to improve her mood. "The mages at the Institute of War observed the physical toll that the wars between city states were having on the world. The reckless use of magic was slowly tearing it apart. The League was proposed as a n alternative to war. Noxus joined some time after its creation, and Ionia followed suit in hopes of regaining territory lost during the war."

"That's surprisingly responsible of Noxians," Ahri said with distaste. "But I just felt that there would be something more worthwhile there for me."

"Ah, but becoming a Champion on the fields of justice is one of the highest honors one can bring upon himself and his City-State. Though all have different reasons for joining, I will tell you that I myself joined to atone for a terrible sin I have committed in the past."

That caught Ahri's attention. She bolted upright. "You . . . did?" She asked quietly. "I guess we have that in common."

Lee Sin's tone became somber. "I will not do you the dishonor of asking what your sin is, but I will tell you that much death and destruction has been wrought by my hand. While I know I can never make the deaths I caused right, I can protect others from sharing their fate at the hands of war."

Ahri was silent. She had assumed that the pain and guilt she carried within her heart could never be felt by anyone else, yet here Lee Sin was, obviously carrying a similar burden.

"I . . . have brought death as well." She said softly. "But I now wish to redeem myself. Or at least try."

"Then I hope you find what you are looking for. To this day I strive for that same goal, and have yet to reach it. I never will."

Ahri was silent for a few moments. "I just wish I could take it back, you know?" She whispered. "If I could, I'd pay any price."

Lee Sin turned to her again, emotion blank under the blindfold. He picked a large stone up off the ground and tossed it into the stream. Ahri watched the water flow around the newly created obstacle.

"The stream flows forwards, and only forwards," He said. "It cannot go backwards, cannot change its route to avoid an obstacle. It can only continue on its path and eventually overcome the obstacle. Do you understand?"

"I think so," Ahri said solemnly. "I can only deal with present. I can't change my circumstances now."

Lee sin nodded.

"But," Ahri began. "Does that mean our actions are already predetermined by someone? Or can we change our futures?"

Lee sin smiled wryly. "That is the question, isn't it? Do we decide our own fates, or are we destined to live lives that are out of our control?"

Ahri couldn't find an answer.

Lee Sin rose, stretching. "Alas, I have spent enough time here. I had better be on my way. Good luck to you." He began walking away.

"Wait!" Ahri called after him. "Can you tell me where to find the Institute of War?"

"It lies near Demacia, on the mainland," He said, turning his head so Ahri could see his face in profile. "Once there, I am sure someone can direct you more accurately."

He turned to leave once more.

"Will I see you again?" Ahri asked.

"I guarantee it." Lee Sin replied.

"I'm Ahri, by the way." Ahri called.

"Until then, Ahri," Lee Sin said, waving over his shoulder.

Ahri turned around and looked at the stream again, feeling surprisingly better after her conversation with Lee Sin. Then, with a start, she realized she had no idea in which direction the mainland lay. She had forgotten to ask in her haste.

She spun and started after Lee Sin again, rounding the tree to look down the path. There was no one in either direction. Just flat, dusty road for miles on end.

She frowned. Where had that man gone? And where was she to go from here?

Suddenly, a burning sensation on her thigh brought her hand to the spot, where her fingertips rested on the red gem she had stuck in her pocket. She brought it up and squinted at it through one eye, but it seemed unchanged. She frowned again and was about to replace it when she heard a faint whisper.

_"West,"_ It said to her.

She shrugged. "West it is." She said.


	3. Uncomfortable Silence

"Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people."

-Carl Jung

* * *

Streaks of purple lightning split the still air. It might not have been too worrisome were there no clouds hanging overhead, leaving the stars shining in the black tapestry of the night sky. Ahri paused, hands on hips, frowning as she studied the flashes.

"This," She said, interest piqued. "Is new."

She trudged up to the top of nearby hill in order to get a better look at the phenomenon. In the distance, she saw a massive, shimmering violet sphere of energy at the bottom of large valley that was hemmed in on both sides by towering walls of stone, effectively blocking her path.

With an annoyed huff, she descended into the valley, following the same shallow stream where she had met Lee Sin.

As she neared the bubble of swirling energy, it seemed even more enormous than it originally had. She squinted in an effort to peer through its translucent surface. There was something inside. She could see a huge stone building, with several towering columns supporting a roof. It might have been a temple, perhaps, but she could not see clearly enough to be sure.

She gasped as the swirling vortex of energy crackled and expanded sharply, biting into the valley wall, disintegrating the stone where it came into contact with it.

"Better, I think," She mused aloud. "Not to try and walk through it."

So awed by the crackling shield was she that she did not notice a wounded man lying on the ground, back propped up against a stone, until she nearly tripped over him.

"Please. . . " He groaned, clutching his arm which was hanging limply and gushing blood.

Ahri glanced down. "You," She said. "What's going on here?"

"It came. The dark. We knew it would, but we still weren't ready. . . "

"What?" she asked. "Who came?"

"The dark one. Here still. Came for us."

Ahri shook her head with a sigh of frustration. "I don't understand." She said, holding out a hand to the man. "But here, let me take a look at your arm."

The man's eyes widened in fear, and he scrambled backwards to avoid her touch.

"No! Mustn't touch. No, never. Never touch. It spreads. The dark."

She raised an eyebrow. "Okay, okay, sorry." She said, retracting her hand. "But will you just tell me what happened? I can't help you if you don't-"

The man jumped to his feet, and clutched Ahri's shoulder with his good arm. "Help? No, you can't. No one can, not now. Run, run. Run from here, don't look back. The dark. The dark will consume you. The Tower. . ."

He pointed at a large watchtower at the edge of the whirling barrier. It must have been several stories tall, but Ahri could not be sure as the top was obscured by a swirling black cloud. The man gave a gurgling groan and fell to the dust at her feet, dead. Black liquid oozed from his open mouth, and his eyes were dark spheres.

Ahri recoiled in disgust.

"Useless," She said, turning to the tower.

As she moved towards it, she became more and more curious. She was not afraid. She had seen too much for that now, but she was perplexed by the roiling cloud of smoke at the top of the tower. It was not completely unlike the smoke cloud that had been Orochi, but this one had a slight purple tinge to it that Orochi had not. She pulled out the stone again. Though smoke still swirled about on the inside, it seemed more sluggish than it had in the past. She shrugged and replaced it as she reached the base of the tower.

The entrance was a simple stone arch cut into the square bricks of the tower. Scattered about the entrance were several unmoving bodies.

Furrowing her brow, she knelt and tried to feel the pulse of the nearest body. At her touch, it turned to ash and floated away on the breeze.

She stood up, recoiling in disgust for a second time.

She told herself she still was not afraid.

She entered the tower, making sure to give the remaining bodies a wide berth. The interior was dark, and she was unable to see much despite her sharp vision. The slightest purple glow from the top of the tower illuminated the outline of a spiral staircase that wound its way up the tower. A steady stream of water fell through the center of the staircase and quietly pooled in a small pond at the center of the room. The little waterfall might have been a breathtaking, peaceful sight at one time, but now, backlit by the soft amethyst light from the top of the tower, it created a somber mood. Taking a deep breath, she started up the stairs.

Faintly, she could hear the crackling of the energy field through the brick walls. Whatever was at the top was the cause of this obstacle; that much was certain. She was also certain that she'd have to deal with it in order to progress, but it couldn't be much of a problem for her. She allowed a fox fire to bloom above her open palm to assure herself of this, its soothing cyan glow lighting the remainder of her path. As she strode up the polished stone steps, she glanced around at the walls. She noticed for the first time that they were all polished to eerie perfection, and she could see the blurry outline of herself, lit by her foxfire, in them.

With some relief, she reached the top, where she saw a single, heavy wooden door, with ornate reliefs painstakingly carved into the surface. Composing herself, she turned the cold metal handle slowly, then yanked it open, foxfire up, prepared to deal with whatever was on the other side.

To her shock, a man was standing there. He was frozen in the air for a single moment, arms reaching for the handle of the door, desperately trying to escape something. But a moment later, he was gone, crumbled to dust and scattered to the wind.

Ahri shuddered, but continued.

The door led to a wide balcony that circumscribed the entirety of the tower. The swirling black cloud she had seen earlier was not present, allowing her to see clearly the shining lavender barrier that barred her way. It cast an eerie glow over everything, so that the world was seen in shades of black and violet.

But perhaps most surprising of all was the lone occupant of the balcony, who was standing several yards away, her back to Ahri, facing the shimmering shield.

From here, she looked almost fragile, of a build similar to Ahri's own, hovering delicately a few inches above the ground, her silver hair flowing from beneath an elegant headdress. She was dressed in an ornate set of mauve-hued robes, and her gloved hands were raised towards the barrier. Bolts of dark lightning sparked off the surface and coursed into her hands and raced up her arms, though for what purpose, Ahri could not determine. Whatever she had expected to be waiting for her here, it wasn't this. One thing was for sure, however, she no longer felt the rising unsettledness that was the precursor to out-and-out fear.

Thus far, it didn't appear that the other woman had even heard her enter, so Ahri spoke up.

"Hey," She called tentatively. "This bubble, whatever it is, it's in my way. You mind?"

Immediately, the woman lowered her arms, cutting off the flow of purple electricity. Still hovering, she turned her head slightly towards Ahri.

With her face in profile, Ahri could see her right eye, and it glowed a deep purple. She shuddered again despite herself.

"Who is it that addresses me?" She said in a high, haughty voice that had a strange echo to it.

Ahri crossed her arms. "Perhaps you should introduce yourself before asking others their names," She replied smartly.

The woman laughed low and cold, the ghostly echo trailing at the end of it. It sent shivers down Ahri's spine.

"You do not know me?" She said, turning to face Ahri. "Odd, I would have expected the doddering fools that were my former mentors to have already dragged my name through the mud by now." Upon finishing the statement, her brows rose in recognition as she saw, at last, Ahri's ears and nine white tails, causing the fox girl to tilt her head to one side in puzzlement.

"You," She said calmly. "I hadn't expected to ever see your face, least of all here."

"You know me too?" Ahri asked, spreading her arms wide. "Why not? I'm on a first-name basis with half of Ionia as it is. A real celebrity."

"Yes. . ." The woman said, floating towards Ahri, ignoring her sarcastic remark. "Such an interesting brand of magic in you. Stealing the life from others? What fun!"

A dull droning sound was heard for a short instant, and the woman was gone. In her place were shimmering black shards that hovered in the air for a few moments before darting upwards into the sky. Ahri glanced around, looking for the woman who was no longer there. Then she felt two gloved hands grasp her shoulders from behind, and heard the woman's echoing lilt in her ear.

"Perhaps if I kill you, I'll be able to use that power myself!"

Ahri whirled around in an attempt to shake the other woman off, but she had already disappeared again.

The woman's mocking laugh sounded again from behind Ahri. She turned to see her in her original position, sitting atop a hovering ball of congealed shadows. The inside of the sphere was dark as pitch, but a spectral violet halo surrounded it, and hurt Ahri's eyes when she looked at it too long.

"Is that why you killed all these people?" Ahri asked, arms crossed once more. "To become more powerful?"

The woman giggled. "Heavens, no." She said. "These poor souls were hardly worth the effort it took to kill them. But, sadly, it had to be done. Their little temple lies right on top of a nexus of magical energy, you see, and when I so politely asked to have access to it," At this, she placed a hand on her chest and rolled her eyes mockingly. "They tried to turn me away! Me! Uncouth, if I say so myself."  
She glanced over at Ahri once more. "Oh, I don't suppose _that's _why you're here," She said. "Come to lecture me about 'controlling my power' or, 'the moral dilemma of slaughtering innocents'?"

Ahri closed her eyes in thought. "No, I'm not." She said stoically. "I can't judge you for killing these people, because I've killed far more than this in the short time I've been alive. I'm not proud, and you shouldn't be, either. This isn't the way to find power. These people have hopes, dreams; desires of their own. Who are we to destroy all that for personal gain?"

Ahri opened her eyes, fully expecting to see her words have some sort of effect. She wasn't wrong in this assumption.

The woman broke out in laughter. "Oh my, that's precious. Really, it is. Let me tell you something," She leapt off the ball and hovered several feet in the air, looking down at Ahri with incandescent mauve eyes. She snapped her fingers and several more spheres of darkness spawned and began swirling about her. "There are two kinds of people in this world; those with power and those without, and I know which is better."

"Only tyrants and fools abuse power. Sooner or later, it all comes back to haunt them in the end." Ahri replied coolly.

"On the contrary, Ahri, power belongs to those who can wield it. Those that are worthy will rise above all others, and rise farther still, until nothing can match them. This is my _birthright_. It would be a perversion of nature not to use it, to see it grow. But these fools would see it hindered, watered down. And I will not allow that."

"That's what all this is for? To be stronger?" Ahri demanded. "What happens when you finally reach your full potential?"

"_My _potential is limitless," She said, slightly annoyed at the notion. "But in any case, once I have enough power, the world will be made to kneel before me, and my old mentors will sincerely regret having tried to impose limits on me."

"You would see the world in chains," Ahri replied. "And _I _will not allow _that."_

"Oh Ahri," the woman said with a mock frown. She descended to hover a few inches above the floor and began pacing back and forth, but as she was hovering, the action was purely theatrical. "The bleeding heart routine really does not suit you. I liked you much better when you were a rampaging murderer, living off of scraps in the back alleys of Ionian villages."

"How do you know about that?" Ahri snapped.

The woman stopped pacing, and flashed a mischievous smile at Ahri. "I like being in control, Ahri. I like to know what cards my opponents have been dealt. So I make it my business to know about the goings on of Ionia. I see that which is a mystery to all others."

"Yeah, well, that was the past," Ahri said quietly. "That's not me anymore."

The woman mock pouted at her. "Oh yes, I'm painfully aware of that little change of heart you had in the forest not long ago. And it only took that woman Akali beating you senseless to see it. Oh, we could have had such a bright future together! A terrible shame." She faked a yawn. "Oh well, I grow tired of this little chat. I really should get back to what I was doing." She turned away towards the bubble of energy.

Ahri bared her teeth. "No. Lower the shield, now. I need to pass. That's the last time I'm going to ask nicely."

"Oh? Little Ahri making threats?" The woman cooed, not bothering to turn around to face Ahri. "I'll pretend I didn't hear that if you run along like a good little girl."

"I'm not going anywhere," Ahri said stubbornly. "Until that barrier is gone."

The woman sighed. "You just couldn't leave it alone, could you? I really hate being ordered around."

Ahri said nothing, her face revealing no emotion.

"Very well then!" she said, swinging around to face Ahri, a dozen dark spheres floating in the air around her. "Let's see if you have what it takes to best Syndra, the Dark Sovereign!"

Ahri raised her left palm and a bobbing blue orb flashed to life in the air above it.

"I wouldn't have it any other way."


	4. Pitch Dark

A sphere of darkness scythed through the air, clawing at Ahri, prompting her to spin backwards to avoid it. She was too slow. It raked across her back, a horrible sense of cold sweeping through her body, her breath frosting in the air with the orb's wake.

"What. . . is this. . . ?" She wondered as she came out of her spin, shivering with the cold.

"The darkness . . . anathema to creatures of the light such as us," Syndra informed her in her calm, soothing voice. "It will sap your life from you, eventually leaving a fragile husk that turns to dust at the slightest touch. It's all very elegant, really. No blood. Ashes to ashes and all _that."_

She snapped her fingers and two more orbs slashed at Ahri. Ahri leapt back, watching the orbs cross in an x shape where she had been standing moments before.

Syndra gave a sigh of frustration at having missed her quarry, and flung more spheres at Ahri. Again and again Syndra's orbs lashed out at her, but every time Ahri nimbly sidestepped each one.

Angry now, Syndra made an upwards sweeping motion with her hand, and pools of darkness spawned around Ahri at her feet. From them, dark spheres began floating up into the air, dancing all about Ahri.

Ahri's eyes widened. She moved.

So did they.

Syndra crossed her arms and smiled in satisfaction. The dark spheres would have reduced her to dust. It had been almost too easy.

Her eyes widened in shock, then narrowed in fury when she noticed Ahri crouched just behind the smoking crater.

"My turn," Ahri said. She Spirit Rushed forward and up, and coming out of her spin, she rained down fox fires on a surprised Syndra, who raised her arms in an attempt to protect herself.

They forcefully slammed into her and the stone under her feet, creating small explosions that raised clouds of dust that obscured her within them. As Ahri began to fall, she kicked her orb into the center of the dust cloud, creating one last, large explosion.

Landing silently on the stone balcony once again, she dusted herself off and grinned contentedly at the cloud of debris.

"And that," she said with finality. "Is how it's done."

Her celebration was cut short as an invisible hand closed around her throat, and forcefully lifted her off the ground. Ahri frantically clawed at her throat, but nothing could be felt there.

Below her, the cloud of dust was settling. Syndra stood in the midst of a large crater, head down and left arm outstretched.

"Fast. . . aren't you?" She said, her soothing voice now dripping with anger and venom.

Ahri, with some pride, noticed that she had visibly hurt Syndra. Her once elegant robes were now tattered and singed.

Syndra slowly tilted her head up to look at Ahri. As she did, Ahri could see that her haughty demeanor had all but evaporated, and a cruel sneer had taken its place. Blood trickled from a cut on her brow and lip. She saw Ahri grasping at the invisible hand on her throat and chuckled. "Hold still. . . just for a moment." She said.

Syndra closed her fist, and the pressure around Ahri's throat intensified, and she frantically gasped for breath, her face turning red.

"You weren't the fastest I've faced. Oh no. But you see. . ." She moved in closer to Ahri, hanging helplessly in the air. "With every battle I fight, with every life I take, I learn how to adapt my power to deal with different opponents. _This _is why my power is limitless. Now, no more dashing about, if you please. In fact, why don't you _take a seat?"_

With an echoing shout, she slammed Ahri into the floor, shattering the stone of the balcony as if it were no more than a pane of glass.

A dazed Ahri vaguely registered that she was falling through the air. An impact from this height would be more than just lethal. An idea came to her in a flash, and, focusing her frantic mind to clarity, she drew a field of magic around her that would cushion her fall. She hoped.

She slammed into the ground with a riotous crash, the air knocked from her lungs. Her smoky blue shield flashed with the impact and dissipated, energy flying in all directions like the ashes out of a smashed urn.

Lying on her back, and with vision that lapsed in and out of focus, she watched as a shower of stone bricks rained down around her. Her body was numb, and would not move at her command. She was, however, still breathing, which came as somewhat of a shock. It had worked.

With a groan, she sat up, and noticed something moving in her peripheral vision. She looked up. Syndra was floating gracefully down to the valley floor, over to where Ahri was sitting.

"You are not dead," She observed with a slight tone of surprise. "That is quite remarkable."

"I've suffered worse," Ahri muttered as she rose.

"This has gone on long enough, I should think. Goodbye, Ahri."

She raised a hand, glowing with dark energy, and made the same motion she had when she had tried to strangle Ahri before.

In a split second, Ahri could feel the lines of invisible energy lancing out towards her, and willed her own magic to lash out and meet it head on.

A surprised Syndra looked at Ahri, wondering why she was not gasping for breath.

She pondered this for a few seconds, when a blue fireball exploded on her chest. Ahri stood defiantly, as if daring her to try again.

In a flash, Ahri Spirit Rushed at Syndra, her own orb swirling into existence above her palm.

Syndra, furious now, purple flames pouring from her eyes, cried out in rage and threw a wave of darkness out in front of her that smashed into Ahri, throwing her backwards. Ahri backflipped and landed several yards away as Syndra launched herself high into the air, kicking up a cloud of dust. She gave a primal scream, and freezing waves of darkness began radiating from her, slamming into Ahri and causing her vision to darken. The very air rushed away from her, as if it were afraid to get too close. Shadows twisting themselves around her lithe form, Syndra began raining a barrage of dark spheres upon Ahri.

Ahri sprinted, gasping as the icy spheres raced past, robbing her of her vitality. But she dared not stop. She could feel them pulverizing the ground at her heels. Any minute now, Syndra could shift her aim, and the spheres would strike her. She'd need to take the offensive.

She swiveled her upper body to face the floating Syndra and peppered her with foxfires. They sparked harmlessly against a shield that flashed purple mere moments before the foxfires could find their mark.

She willed her orb forward, smashing it against Syndra's shield. But it was as if she were attacking a brick wall; it would not give. Frustrated and out of options, Ahri Spirit rushed towards Syndra. The mage pirouetted in the air and kicked Ahri back to the ground with a boot cloaked in shadows.

Ahri went hurtling towards the valley floor yet again, and Syndra, without missing a beat, flicked another volley of dark spheres, seemingly in endless supply, at the hapless woman.

Ahri broke her fall with an outstretched arm, flipped over, and landed back on her feet. Thinking quickly, she brought her orb up in front of her. The dark spheres collided with it, evaporating into purple motes that scattered in the gale Syndra was creating.

Syndra threw three of her spheres to the ground that threw up gargantuan columns of ebon flames where they hit, piercing the clouds and causing purple shockwaves to ripple through the earth.

Ahri did not know what their purpose was, but did not intend to find out. She dove up and over the nearest pulsing wave, shards of earth thrown up by the shockwave striking her body as she somersaulted to a halt on the opposite side. TO her left, another pulse was racing her way, forcing her to cartwheel sideways over it. She paused for breath and looked around. There the shockwaves had all raced past and left her unharmed, to Syndra's increasing frustration.

"Oh, _hold still will you?!" _She commanded, raising a palm. Ahri braced for another hit, but it did not come. Instead, the ground behind her erupted in a pillar of dark energy.

"Let's see you escape_ gravity!" _Syndra cried as the tower of energy collapsed into a shallow, glowing pool that snapped and yanked at Ahri.

She gasped and leaned against the pull, arms outstretched, reaching for something, anything to hold onto. It was, alas, in vain; her feet slowly slid across the dusty stone of the valley floor towards the swirling vortex.

Cackling above Ahri's head, Syndra drew more darkness from the night air into herself and shaped it into dozens of flickering dark spheres.

Ahri inhaled sharply, bracing for the concussive impact that never came. Rather, the torrent of dark orbs passed _right through her. _

They were cold. Horribly cold. They came again and again, ripping through her, blotting out her vision and forcing her to double over. Her breath came in icy puffs, and her strength failed her, causing her to fall to her knees. Her heart rate beat faster and faster as adrenaline surged through her blood, then more and more slowly as the heat and strength left her body.

"How. . . ironic. . ." Ahri murmured through ragged breaths. "Having my life torn away from me. . . just like I've done. . . so many times. . ." Strands of her hair withered and turned to ash.

"Talking to yourself, Ahri?" Syndra said after the barrage of dark spheres had ceased. "Your last words, perhaps?"

"Ha. . . no, not just yet." Ahri said, strength and timbre returning to her voice. She stood, green essence swirling up her limbs. "I'm not finished with you yet."

"Healing. . . how troublesome," Syndra said, a pout on her lips. "You _are _hard to kill."

Ahri smiled and cocked her head in reply.

Syndra raised both arms, and, with a cry, motioned as if she were lifting a heavy object.

The ground shook. Geysers of violet energy erupted from cracks that formed in the earth. The ground splintered and shattered along the bleeding lines, and several small stones at Ahri's feet began to float in the air.

"Oh. . ." Ahri said, moments before she was flung high into the air along with the piece of earth she had been standing on.

She slid off the stone as it shot into the air, and, eyes wide with fear, scrabbled the surface of the rock with her fingernails trying to find purchase. Wind howled and whipped at her, stinging her eyes. Her fingers caught a narrow ridge, jolting her to a stop and nearly dislocating her shoulders, but she held on. She opened one eye. Syndra was at the center of a massive whirlwind of dust and floating patches of earth of varying sizes. Darkness swirled about her like a stale purple gale, and violet lightning snapped and cracked, tearing into the stones around her. She was momentarily awed by Syndra's power. Something like this was far beyond the scope of her own strength.

Syndra stopped rising, and the floating stones snapped to a halt, throwing Ahri higher still. She fell back down to land heavily on one of the stones. It bobbed with her weight, but did not fall out of the air.

Out of the corner of her eye, Ahri noticed Syndra raising an arm, fingers outstretched.

She snapped her palm shut, and shadows enveloped the stone.

Understanding dawned, and she hopped to her feet and sprung off the rock, her palms catching the edge of the nearest stone with a painful slap.

Behind her, the shadows crushed the rock with a loud bang, sharp shards of stone flying and pelting Ahri as she hauled herself atop a new piece of earth.

Syndra screamed behind her. She was unused to facing such resistance.

"Oh! _Stop moving!" _Syndra pouted, echoing voice rising to a shriek.

Ahri was only half listening. She was more focused on moving onto the next stone. She leapt from stone to stone, alternating feet, as Syndra tried to crush her. So far, she was too slow. Ahri's hopping kept her just ahead of Syndra's dark detonations.

She was reminded of a child's game she had seen played once. '_Yes, just a game,' _ She thought to herself as she was showered with dust and pebbles from another slab of earth being demolished behind her. '_Don't look down. Just a game.'_

But despite herself, she did look down. The shimmering purple barrier was tiny, like a cheap gem on a poor woman's ring. She took a deep breath to steady herself and leapt off the stone to a larger one, hovering in front of and below her, adjacent to Syndra herself.

She landed with a dusty _thump, _rolling forward with the momentum. Syndra snarled and launched another wave of dark energy at Ahri. Before she could react, it hit her like a brick wall with its concussive force, throwing her back into the stone she had leapt down from earlier.

"How easily the weak are scattered. . ." Syndra murmured as she raised an arm to strike again.

Ahri's thoughts raced. She'd never get in close; not with power like that. If she could momentarily keep her from striking, it would be a simple affair, but how?

A thought occurred to her. Her grasp of the workings of magic was still rudimentary at best, but as far as she knew, it was more or less the same between individuals. Perhaps something that worked for Syndra could work for her, as well.

Pink mist swirled around Ahri's left hand, and she grinned, eyes closed.

"Oh, Syndra," She said in a mock apologetic tone, one eye opening in an exaggerated wink. "I think it's about time we kissed and made up, _don't you?"_

She raised a palm and blew a kiss, the pink missed swirling from her open palm towards Syndra's floating form, taking the shape of a heart in the air as it do so.

It struck Syndra and burst, coating her limbs in a magenta maelstrom.

A confused and horrified Syndra found that she could not move her limbs, and was compelled to float through the air towards Ahri, her body totally out of her control.

Her eyes locked with Ahri's and she whispered, "You won't make a fool of me! _I'll shatter you to dust, _I promise you that."

"Now now, don't make a girl a promise," Ahri said before closing the distance between them with a spirit rush , flying into the void beyond the slab of rock she'd been standing on. "If you know you can't keep it!" She finished as she flipped forward, and, with a heel cloaked in blue flames, kicked the side of Syndra's headdress with an audible _crack. _

Syndra fell like a brick, and with her focused severed, so did the remaining floating stones. Ahri felt a brief moment of zero gravity right before she, too, plummeted. Below, the tiny violet sphere of the magical dome was growing exponentially. She didn't know what would happen when she hit, but she knew it would be quick and sufficiently lethal. She frowned.Ahri would die, surely, unless she was able to float as Syndra did.

She doubted she had enough time to figure that one out, so she settled for the next best thing.

Below her, Syndra had recovered from the blow. With another cry of rage, a beam of scathing darkness lanced outwards from her outstretched palm, scything through falling stone. Ahri twisted like a cat in the air to avoid it, but even so, it clipped her on her shoulder, sending her spinning. Stones and Syndra's glowing form whirled past as she spun. Thinking quickly, she stuck out an arm, and slowly, thankfully, the spin slowed.

Syndra was readying another burst of the dark beam. Ahri Spirit rushed over to one of the falling stone and ran down towards Syndra.

Syndra pierced the stone with a blast of shadowy magic. Ahri pushed off of it, gaining enough momentum to crash into Syndra. She grabbed handfuls of Syndra's mauve robes, eyes streaming and hair whipping around with the rushing gale. Syndra gave a disgusted grunt and tried to shove her away, but Ahri held fast. Syndra had power enough to levitate them both to safety, so she had no intention of letting her go.

"Miserable wretch!" Syndra snarled. "Release me!"

She enveloped a fist in shadows and struck Ahri in the solar plexus with it, forcing the air from her lungs. Ahri released Syndra's flapping robes, doubled up, and wrapped her arms around herself. Taking advantage of this, Syndra dropped an elbow on Ahri's exposed back, sending her down and away.

Ahri groaned as she gently drifted away, brushing lightly against a small stone, about four feet in diameter. Above, she heard the telltale cry of exertion that told her that Syndra was readying another spell. She quickly took hold of the stone and shifted her weight, causing the stone to flip over, so that Ahri was now clinging to the underside.

Dark energy drilled into the stone under her, shattering it. Ahri cast a glance downward. The ground was coming up extremely fast.

She looked back up, and using the pieces of the broken stone as handholds, hauled herself back up through the air to Syndra, who was still recovering from the last assault. She tried to take hold of Syndra again, but she caught Ahri's arms.

The two became locked in a stalemate, in which each one tried to force the other to be on the bottom when they hit.

Below, the ground was much too close for comfort now, and Ahri frantically wondered why Syndra didn't just slow their fall already.

Then her blood ran cold as she realized that Syndra could likely survive the fall where Ahri could not. She had to move, _now._

Ahri got an arm free of Syndra's grip, snapped an elbow into Syndra's nose, knocking her away. Seizing the opportunity, Ahri flipped over Syndra and planted her feet on Syndra's back, pushing off moments before they struck the ground.

Ahri hit the ground hard, falling to hands and knees after the impact. Behind, Syndra hit the ground with a mighty crash, throwing up a geyser of dirt. Around her, the stones hit, producing a similar effect.

With a groan more of frustration than pain, Syndra forced herself to her knees, battered but not dead, as Ahri knew she would not be. Her power was too great to have been killed by a simple fall.

Syndra lifted her head, and a cobalt foxfire sparked into the ground beside her.

"Don't move," Ahri commanded.

"Congratulations, Ahri," Syndra said through heavy breathing. "Feels good, doesn't it?"

Ahri became aware she was grinning ear to ear. It faded. "What are you talking about?" She demanded.

"You say you want to help people, but I know the look on a person's face when they enjoy violence. I see it on yours. . . clear as day." She lilted, smirking.

Ahri was silent. Was she right? _had _she enjoyed the fight? Thinking back, it would certainly seem that way to any outside observer, she could admit. But did that really matter? Syndra was a murderer by her own admission, and thus did not deserve any mercy. Ahri's was a just cause.

"Why deny yourself anymore?" Syndra continued. "Your potential is great. You could be very powerful indeed." She floated into the air and grinned. "Though not as powerful as _me, _of course."

She flashed purple. Her cuts and bruises were erased in flurries of indigo sparks, her face was cleared of grime, and even her tattered robes stitched themselves back together. Ahri's adrenaline spiked in anticipation for a new fight, and she moved to a ready stance as the pieces of Syndra's broken headpiece clicked back into place.

But she was exhausted, both physically and mentally. There was no way she could continue fighting, or rejuvenate herself as Syndra had just done. But her fear was in vain, for Syndra just threw her head back and laughed.

"Relax. I'm done fighting you. It's rare that I'm ever bested, so I think you've earned the right to scurry along with your life. This time."

Ahri swallowed hard. "I still need to get by." She said slowly.

"Of course you do," Syndra replied. "I'm just about done here, anyway. " At this, she turned to barrier, raised both palms, and crackling purple lightning sparked off the shield into her hands, down her arms, and into her body. The shield flickered once, twice, then died. What lay inside could finally be glimpsed clearly. It was indeed an ornate temple of some sort, carved out of white stone. A hole in the top of the structure appeared to be radiating some sort of blue-tinged gas that wavered in the night sky like the air above a road on a hot day. Syndra caught Ahri's gaze.

"Magic," She stated. "I removed the stopper on the reservoir of magic here, as it were, allowing it to escape. I've gotten what I need. Replace the seal, if you wish, but more will come seeking it regardless."

Ahri turned to Syndra. She seemed thoughtful.

"Do you wonder why they built this here, Ahri? This temple?" Without waiting for a response, she said, "Because they wanted the power for themselves. Say what you will about the "good people" that lived here, but is it not so? They hoarded it, kept it bottled up. Should it not be free, shared among the people of Ionia? Is what they did not selfish?"

Ahri looked out at the temple. "Perhaps," She said coolly, "They did what they must to keep such power away from people like you."

Syndra giggled. "Perhaps. It is said that people will always seek to gain power where they can. I believe that _we _are the ones that are sought out.

"What are you saying?" Ahri asked.  
"Like moths to flame, people like us are helplessly drawn to power. That is why I'm sure we'll meet again, Miss Nine Tailed Fox."

She disintegrated into a thousand black squares and vanished, echoing laugh echoing on the breeze.

Ahri turned back towards the temple and sighed. She'd rest there tonight.

So battered and exhausted was she that she did not notice a shadowy figure watching her from the shadow cast by the canyon wall.


	5. Chance Encounter

The rising sun eked out over the horizon as, at long last, Ahri arrived at the end of the seemingly endless expanse of the dry, rocky, canyon, the forlornly empty, gleaming white temple at her back. As the heat from the first few rays of the sun spread across her back, she could tell already that the day would be a hot one.

Looking ahead towards the canyon's end, Ahri came to a small hill, towards the top of which Ahri made her way. Standing atop its shallow peak, she watched as the sun's light burned away the swirling clouds of fog that clung to the land like sluggishly rolling snow banks. Ahri saw then that the canyon opened up onto a verdant, sprawling plain, populated here and there by rocky crags and clumps of cherry trees.

As the sun began its steady climb to its zenith, Ahri became more and more enraptured by the scenic landscape. The very sight of it fascinated her, so different was it from the thick forests of towering trees where she had spent the majority of her life thus far. It was so flat, so empty, so inconceivably _vast, _and it made her realize how little of the world she had actually ever seen.

The hours drew on, and the sun strengthened in its endeavor to light the world. Despite the growing heat, she kept the hood of her now-familiar white cloak pulled up over her ears, and her nine tails drawn closely about her body under the cape. While she could see no humans nearby, she did not want to run the risk of a chance encounter. She knew that humans would still be largely reproachful of certain parts of her anatomy; namely, those that were vulpine in nature.

By midmorning, she came across a short, stone wall. It came in from her left, curving gently away before it crossed the stream she was walking beside. The little wall stood only about four feet in height, but sat atop a low rise so that Ahri was walking in its shadow. She did not know its purpose; a wall so short could hardly have been a deterrent to invasion or attack, so she surmised that it had once been a part of a larger structure, as it looked very old. Cracks ran down its length, and patches of clinging, bright green moss covered it in places.

Other than this cursory observation, she paid it no mind. She pulled her hood low, blocking out much of the scenery, in order to keep the sun out of her eyes.

After another hour or so, Ahri felt herself move out of the shade of the wall.

The instant she did so, the sound of distant hoof beats pounding the dirt met her ears. She froze. It was quickly growing louder, rumbling inside her skull. Her head shot up, golden eyes pointed at the source of the noise. A large, black-painted carriage, being pulled by four panicked horses, was bearing down on her.

Ahri whirled and tried to make it back behind the wall, to get out of the carriage's path. She dove back into its protective shadow as the horses cleared the short wall, thundering down to the ground beside her. Then, an earth-shaking crash was heard, prompting Ahri to look up. Time seemed to slow as she watched the carriage, riderless, flip through the air, metal axles and wheels glinting in the morning light.

It crashed to earth on its side, perilously close to Ahri, before being dragged a ways by the still-running horses.

Ahri stood and angrily moved from behind the wall, scanning the other side for any indicator as to why she was almost killed by a runaway carriage.

An explosion at her feet stopped her in her tracks.

She fell onto her back, ears ringing and mouth full of dirt from the explosion. Her vision swirled, as if she had just spun around in circles; the puffy white clouds above refusing to stay in place.

Mentally, she took stock of her body, and concluded that she was, thankfully, unharmed.

She sat up, and in a blur, a female form dressed in shining crimson armor stepped in front of her, arms flung wide. Floating in the air before the armored woman was an array of silver blades of a variety of shapes in sizes, splayed out in the shape of fan.

Tiny, rapid-fire sparks danced along their edges, but nothing could be heard. She was still deafened from the blast.

'_Bullets,'_ Ahri thought dimly and dizzily. _'She's blocking bullets. I'm being shot at. Why am I being shot at?'_

Ahri stared at the woman, her mane of cobalt locks flying in the air as if whipped by a sudden gale. She shouted something, and a deafened Ahri read her lips. It was a curse.

A glowing, golden bolt of molten lead streaked through Ahri's field of vision, whipping between the blades and lancing across the woman's right shoulder. She silently cried out in pain and crumpled to her knees. She managed to keep the protective bulwark of blades out in front of them as she clutched at her streaming wound with her left hand, but Ahri could see the effort was becoming increasingly difficult. Ahri, head ringing and bleeding from countless shrapnel cuts, managed to stand and stagger over to the helpless woman.

Ears still ringing, she felt herself shout for the woman to get up, to get to safety. When she wouldn't respond to her pleas, Ahri gripped her by the shoulder guards and yanked her forcefully behind the stone wall. All the while, bullets flew past her head, spinning through her hair and harrying her like flies.

With a huff, she collapsed and leaned her back against the wall, trying to get her bearings. She glanced over at the armored woman. Her teeth were gritted in pain, but she flashed a thumbs-up to show that she was okay.

In a flash of recognition, she realized that she had seen this woman's face once before. But that wasn't important now.

She hauled herself to her feet and peeked over the edge of the wall. A bullet slammed into the stone inches from her face, showering her with pieces of the ancient stone. She ducked back behind the wall.

"Snipers," She heard dimly with hearing that was slowly returning to normal. She turned. It was the wounded woman who had spoken. "We won't be able to move from here while they live."

She cursed under breath. What had she gotten herself into? She hadn't planned on dying today, but it would seem that the outlook on her immediate future did not look too bright.

She heard the heavy clanking of armor as someone ran up to the other side of the wall. She tensed and glanced up as someone tried to clamber over the wall. A black armored man gasped and paused halfway over the wall , surprised at seeing the two women hiding behind the wall. He clumsily tried to draw his blade and get jump down from the wall at the same time, but Ahri reached up and took hold of his arm and yanked him down off the wall before he could accomplish either task. He fell in front of her and rolled down the short hill a ways, and Ahri whipped a palm up and conjured a foxfire. The soldier, seeing this, scooped up a handful of dust and threw it in Ahri's face, causing her to choke and lose her concentration. The soldier leapt to his feet and threw himself upon her, sending them both tumbling to the ground. He pinned Ahri's arms to the ground with his gauntleted hands in an effort to keep her from casting any more spells. In response, Ahri got her feet underneath him and kicked him away, watching him land on his back near the overturned carriage.

Ahri tried to climb to her feet, but the soldier was faster. He got on one knee and un-slung a rifle from his back, leveling it at Ahri.

Ahri heard the red-armored woman cry out in shock behind her, but she was prepared.

Time seemed to slow again and all sounds were silenced as she watched his hands. The instant she saw his trigger finger move, she spirit rushed to her left, catching him off guard and throwing off his aim. Before he could shift it, she dashed again, cracking off essence bolts.

She whirled past him, essence bolts drilling into his chest, penetrating his armor. The sun glinted off his helmet as he slumped over and fell face-down in the dirt.

Breath rasping in her throat, she turned her attention back to the scarlet-armored woman. Her eyes were wide and mouth agape in surprise. She hadn't expected a display like that from Ahri.

"You. . . you're a mage!" She exclaimed.

Ahri stepped in and offered her hand to her. She took it gratefully, and once standing, leaned heavily on her shoulder. The woman peered into Ahri's yellow irises, shaded by the point on of her white hood.

"I know you," She said. "We've met, haven't we?"

"Weeks ago. The Fire Festival. You're Irelia."

Irelia seemed happy that Ahri remembered her. Ahri began to head for a small copse of pink-blossomed trees that she planned to use as cover.

The going was slow and Ahri saw that Irelia was more wounded that Ahri had originally thought. Multiple bullet wounds marked her left calf and thigh as well as the one she had seen on her arm.

Ahri half-carried Irelia towards the small grove and, as gently as she was able, leaned Irelia against the gnarled trunk of a cherry tree.

"You're bleeding out. " Ahri said evenly.

"I think. . . I think they hit the femoral artery."

In response, Ahri knelt and placed a hand on Irelia's thigh. She closed her eyes and siphoned off a portion of her magic, the energy forming a familiar emerald-hued mist in the palm of her hand. It sparked gently and flowed from Ahri's hand into Irelia's armor and into the flesh beneath. The bullet wounds glowed viridian for a few seconds before closing and fading to faint scars.

Irelia gazed up at Ahri.

"Who _are_ you?" She asked.

"Someone who's going to save your life." Ahri replied simply. "Those wounds will take a minute to heal fully. You'll be weak until then. So stay here."

An explosion behind her caused her to flinch, and then whirl on the noise. The part of the wall they had previously been taking cover behind exploded in a shower of stone bricks.

As she watched, a still smoking cannon and a catapult were wheeled up onto the hill in the gap in the wall. The soldiers pulled the arm of the catapult back, loaded something onto it. . .

"You must move!" Irelia cried from behind her. "Quickly!"

The warning came too late. Ahri heard the catapult trigger behind her, heard the sound of the projectile hurtling through air.

She turned and watched in horror as a large metal canister descended from the sky, poised to land right on top of her. She raised her arms, forearms crossed, as if that could somehow ward off the destruction that was sure to come.

An instant before the object struck, a feminine form leapt down from the trees, landing lightly in front of Ahri and raising an arm limned in silver-white light. A bubble of the same colored light flashed around the three of them, making the world outside it seems hazy and out of focus. A half-instant later, the canister struck the barrier, shattering in a shimmering, sickly green cloud.

The shield flickered and died. Green mist hung in the air, prompting Ahri to choke on the noxious fumes, but she was alive. All about her, a viscous, green liquid had splattered the surroundings, sticking to trees and coating the ground at her feet. Where it touched, anything living withered and died, the countless pink cherry blossoms turning gray with death and decay, falling en masse from the trees, while the trunks became desiccated and stunted and slumped over as if in despair.

But while destruction was wrought upon the once-beautiful scenery, green fog obscuring the sun, pinpoints of light glinted off the girl's golden hair and bright silver armor, nearly blinding Ahri with their sudden intensity. The young girl stood defiant amongst the despair and decay, a paragon of life against the scene of death.

Through eyes streaming with the bright lights and thick green smoke, Ahri glimpsed a wordless, self-assured smile gracing the young girl's pretty face.

Wordlessly, the girl cocked her head in the direction of Irelia, as if asking Ahri to get her away from the area. Ahri was more than happy to comply; the air was acrid and burned her lungs. The girl however, did not seem to notice, or at least not care. She simply turned to face the catapult and the soldiers swarming about it, clearly intending to cover Ahri and Irelia's escape.

Ahri didn't intend to waste the opportunity. She hurried over to Irelia and, as gently as she was able while still making haste, hauled her to her feet and took her weight onto her shoulder.

Irelia's leg wound had been deep, and as a result, was taking its time to heal properly, which meant that Irelia was unable to move very quickly.

"Who. . .who was that?" Ahri asked as they began making their way to the edge of the trees, dead cherry blossoms falling around them like ashen snow.

"A friend. Don't worry about her. She can take care of herself."

Ahri was still curious, but her questions could wait. Hopefully the girl could be counted on to keep those soldiers off their backs for a few moments.

Though the going was slower than Ahri would have enjoyed, the two eventually cleared the small copse of trees. No sooner had they gotten out into the open did the ground beneath their feet begin to shake. Ahri whipped around to look back at the tree line .The ground beneath the dying trees heaved and trembled. It seemed as though something lay just below the surface, eager to escape.

Ahri's fears proved prophetic as massive vines tore through the crust of the earth, reaching towards the sky. Each one was three times as wide around as any of the trees in the grove, as perhaps a dozen times as high.

They writhed horribly, as though they were the arms of some vast subterranean beast. Ahri was petrified with a combination of shock, revulsion, and fear.

"Wha-What is that?!" Ahri yelped.

"I. . . I do not know," Irelia replied. "Someone coming to help, perhaps?"

A massive globe of swirling red-green energy formed within the center of the grove of trees, that expanded rapidly and explosively, and when it subsided, the defiled, dying ,trees had disappeared, replaced by pink, vivacious leaves that swirled high into the air and out of view.

At the epicenter of the magical anomaly appeared a thin, humanoid shape.

The soldiers, unharmed but momentarily confused, circled around the newcomer, as if unsure what course of action to take. Of the golden-haired girl, there was no sign.

At this distance, it was difficult to see details, but Ahri clearly saw the humanoid figure's left arm twist and convulse, forming a long, writhing tentacle.

It looked up at the nearest soldier. The figure's tentacle-arm extended in an instant and wrapped itself around the soldier's waist before throwing him high into the air. The tentacle then pierced the man while he was in the air, tearing him in two. Both halves of the man, armor and all, dissolved into tendrils of black-streaked gore that snaked into the tentacle and was absorbed by it.

Ahri felt sick.

The soldiers, now convinced that the newcomer was an enemy, rushed in to attack. One soldier, sword raised for an overhand strike, got too close to the tentacled humanoid, and paid the price. The figure's head snapped towards the soldier, wrapped its tentacle around his sword, stopping him in his tracks. The figure then moved closer and in the blink of an eye, punched straight through his chest cavity with its other arm, right where the soldier's heart would be. The soldier dissolved and was consumed by the creature as the first soldier had been.

Another soldier, seeking to take advantage of the monster's distraction, charged in with the point of a lance out in front of him. The creature calmly turned to him before sweeping low with its tentacle, taking the soldier off his feet. It drove its tentacle into the earth, and it re-emerged under the soldier's prone form, impaling him and lifting him off the ground. He, like his comrades before him, was absorbed by the humanoid beast.

Having slaughtered all the soldiers in the vicinity, it threw back its head, and even from where they stood, the sound of a woman's laughter met Irelia and Ahri's ears.

An unearthly chill ran down Ahri's spine as its head leveled at the two of them.

Then it started moving towards them.


	6. Rose's Thorns

It covered the distance between them in mere moments. Any notions that this newcomer had come to her aid were dashed in those fractions of a second. Ahri dropped Irelia roughly as Ahri's reflexes took control of her body, and she twisted her torso just in time to avoid the being's tentacle that lashed at her like a lance. In the blink of an eye, she clamped the slender fingers of her left hand around the narrow appendage, yanking it with what strength she could muster. The woman, for Ahri was now convinced that it was one, despite whatever outlandish powers it had, was not accustomed to anyone fighting back, and stumbled forward with the force of the pull, sinister yellow eyes wide in surprise.

Before the woman could recover, Ahri drove her right elbow into her nose, hearing a satisfying crunch as it snapped under the blow.

The other woman reeled, clutching her bloodied nose. She opened her eyes, blinking against the pain, only to find that her prey was no longer standing before her. A shadow descended upon her. She glanced up, searching furtively for the cause.

Ahri was there, falling through the air, nine white tails splayed out around her like the rays of the shining sun, left palm ablaze in magical blue flames.

Ahri crashed into the other woman with force, driving her knees into her shoulders and her flaming palm into her face.

The woman fell on her back, hard, Ahri astride her chest. But if Ahri had thought it so easy, she was woefully incorrect. The woman's tentacle arm wrapped around Ahri's own and extended, throwing Ahri away as if she were a child's doll.

She landed in a heap and rolled to her feet. She groaned inwardly. She wondered if Fate detested Shen's decision to let her live, and was now trying its damndest to kill her. It certainly felt that way. She couldn't take two steps without finding her life in complete jeopardy. She noted with a touch of cynicism that she was more or less used to the idea of possibly dying at any moment by now.

The tentacled woman lurched to her feet, and drove its tentacle into the earth. A sort of energy that Ahri could not identify leapt from the ground, up the appendage, and into her body. It raced along her skin, healing small cuts and scrapes, and finally, the broken nose and burns on her face. She retraced the tentacle and it morphed itself back into an arm. She stood, regarding Ahri coldly, as a fox might regard its prey. Ahri stared back, finally getting a close look at her foe. She looked vaguely human, with fair features and a flowing mane of bright red hair. She seemed to be completely devoid of clothing, save for what appeared to be patches of thorny, spiked foliage that covered little of her torso and most of her arms and legs. It seemed to grow from her body itself. Ahri was awed. Ionia had no shortage of interesting characters, it seemed.

After a few moments of being subjected to the other woman's piercing gaze, Ahri grew restless. She knew inherently that her foe was simply waiting for Ahri to act, so as to analyze her movements and end the engagement quickly. She had done this herself many times, both as a fox and as a woman.

She smiled darkly. Perhaps the two were not much different, despite their wildly varying appearances.

He ears twitched, her tails flicked, and she leapt into the fight. Quicker than most, the woman was again caught off guard by Ahri's sudden movements. Ahri willed her orb into being and swung it crosswise against the other woman's body, feeling it connect with a satisfying solidity. It flared as the magic contained within surged out and into the woman, causing her visible pain. But Ahri was relentless. She swept it around again and again, as deftly as a warrior might work a sword. Her foe wised up to the pattern and crossed her arms in front of her, and where the orb connected with her forearms, it bounced off as harmlessly as blade would bounce off a metal shield.

Breaking Ahri's assault, the woman shifted her arm into a tentacle again and swung it horizontally at Ahri's head. Had the powerful limb connected, it would have snapped her neck like a twig, but she ducked under the clumsy blow and kicked out hard, feeling her heel slam into her opponent's abdomen. The shapeshifter staggered back, clutching her midsection. Ahri straightened and whirled in place on the ball of one foot like a dancer, swinging the orb around her as she did. It whipped around almost too fast for the eye to follow, making several revolutions around Ahri's lithe form in a second, biting deeply into the other woman's body each time.

The battered woman again stumbled, staggered by the assault, but Ahri hadn't finished. With a bit more flair than was absolutely necessary, she flipped forward through the air and swung her arms down, commanding the orb to come crashing down out of the air to connect to with the top of the woman's head. She crashed face-first into the ground, throwing up bits of earth and grass with the impact.

Ahri had no time to rest, as an instant after striking the ground, the woman had sprung back to her feet, newfound rage burning in her eyes.

She morphed both arms into long, writhing tentacles and began raining blows on Ahri. Ahri cried out and covered her head with her arms as the tentacles struck her. They cracked like whips and battered her like clubs, each strike too fast to follow. The strikes were like rapid fire bullets out of a machine gun; fast, sharp, and unbelievably painful, each one coming an instant after the last, the pain causing her to stagger and rendering her unable to escape.

After a few seconds, she became desperate, and with a cry of outrage, released a fiery burst of magic that erupted from her like the air from a bursting bubble. The force knocked the tentacles away, giving Ahri a chance to focus long enough to conjure several foxfires, which she then launched at her foe like a volley of arrows.

They struck her skin and sizzled as Ahri charged forward, orb in hand, intent on crushing her skull with it. But the woman had sufficiently recovered and wrapped a tentacle around Ahri's arm, throwing her high into the air and nearly tearing her arm from its socket.

She tried to pierce the airborne Ahri with a scything tentacle, but Ahri, having seen it before, was wise to the trick and twisted her body like a cat, causing the clawed tentacle to taste only air.

Ahri grabbed hold of the tentacle as it sailed past and swung down the rigid limb as one might slide down a pole, and felt her feet slam into the woman at the other end.

The shapeshifter, livid at having her nose broken for the second time that day, had had enough. She tossed a handful of what looked like tiny grains of sand at Ahri's feet, which in mere moments matured into fully grown plants unlike anything Ahri had ever seen. They were vines as thick as rope, covered in cruel red thorns as long as her forearm. They meshed together into a sort of net on all sides and overhead, trapping her like a rabbit in hunter's cage. Ahri tried to burn them away with foxfires, but they were uncannily resistant, and weren't so much as singed.

Ahri glared at her captor in impotence.

The woman was watching her again, with that same blank expression she had worn before.

"What the hell are you staring at me for?" Ahri snapped. "If you're going to kill me, do it."

The woman did not reply immediately. After a pause, she said, "The blood in your veins is not all Human." The woman's voice was strangely melodic, but layered with something more sinister, something that sounded like dead, dry leaves whispering in the wind as they brushed together. "Just like me."

Ahri was taken somewhat aback. Just like her? What did that mean?

"Tell me," The woman said, gripping the bars of Ahri's cage. "How did you obtain your Human form? Did you-"

"I don't know," Ahri interrupted flatly. "And I don't think I'd be inclined to chat with you even if I did." She crossed her arms and turned away haughtily.

The woman seemed unperturbed by this. "It matters not. A mere curiosity, nothing more. We are similar, you and I. But in origin only. You are so like them. So like the Humans. It. . . disgusts me.

"It's mutual," Ahri retorted. "I saw what you did to those soldiers."

"Did you, now? A useful trick I learned in my past life. Humans, cursed pests though they may be, they do make excellent sustenance. Soon, all Humans will share their fate."

Ahri turned to look at her. "You look an awful lot like those you claim to hate."

"A necessary sacrifice," The woman replied calmly. "My plans required a little more. . . mobility, than what my past life could provide." She smiled, but it was a rehearsed, emotionless, unsettling thing. Ahri figured that was the point.

"I've tried to replicate my actions, to raise brothers and sisters to my cause," She continued. "But I have been unsuccessful. If you tell me how you obtained your form, I may yet let you live."

"The Humans are my people now. I won't help you slaughter them." She spit in the woman's direction.

"So be it," the woman said, grin widening. "You will serve another way. When I consume you, your memories will become mine, and I will know your secret at last. You could have had a place at my side when I rewrite this world, but you chose to be a pawn of the Humans instead. A pity, but one must sacrifice a few pawns to win the game, yes?"

She drove the tentacle through Ahri's chest. The worst pain she had ever felt blossomed where the tentacle struck, and she screamed in agony as blood flowed without pause from the gaping wound.

She frantically tried to yank the tentacle out of her body, but her strength was fading and she knew she could not overcome her captor's strength. Worse still was the sensation of her body being eaten away by the tentacle. She fought it with all she had, but she knew it was a losing battle. She'd be dead in minutes, if not seconds.

Then, another voice, resonant and strong, met Ahri's ears.

"Don't get so caught up in sacrificing pawns," It said as a large blade plunged through the shapeshifter's back and came through the front. "That you forget to protect your king."

The blade tore free and the woman slumped to the ground, revealing Irelia standing behind her, standing tall and proudly.

"Checkmate, you bitch." She said with finality.

* * *

**A/N: Sorry about the long wait on this one. Next one will be up soon. Enjoy.**


	7. Rose in Bloom

The tentacle that had pierced her chest went limp like cut rope, its agonizing consumption of her body halted. Ahri wasted no time, wrapping her fingers around it and mentally tapping into the conduits of life energy within it, yanking at them hard as one might pull at the ends of a string. The familiar life giving energy raced in green tendrils up her arms, homing in on her chest wound, closing and halting the bleeding. Her strength returned to her, and she slowly, painfully, tore the bladed tentacle out of her chest. Bone snapped into place, skin stitched itself back together, and Ahri collapsed flat on her back in relief and exhaustion, knowing that she had escaped death by a hair's breadth.

She managed to stand and turn to Irelia, who was standing over the torn corpse of the plant-covered woman.

"Thanks, Irelia," She breathed shakily. "I owe you."

Irelia turned her gaze upon Ahri, and tapped her leg where she had been healed. "Consider us even." She said. She stepped closer to the net of vines and raised her blade. "Now let's get you out of there."

She slashed across her body in an x shape, and at first, it seemed as though nothing had happened, so fine were the cuts. But after a few short moments, the wall of twisted vines in front of her collapsed to reveal a small hole, which Irelia widened with a stomp of a metal-clad foot.

Ahri was about to step through, when movement at the edges of her vision caught her attention. Her eyes widened as she spotted a very much alive shapeshifter crawling to her feet.

"Irelia!" Ahri called. "Watch out!"

But it came too late. A tentacle wrapped itself around Irelia's leg and roughly upended her. Irelia landed hard on her back, momentarily stunned.

Ahri clawed her way through the hole in the vines in an attempt to come to Irelia's aid, the wicked thorns biting deeply into her skin. But she was too slow. She saw the foliage-covered woman raise a clawed tentacle, poised to pierce a prone Irelia's eye socket. There would be no healing that.

"No!" Ahri called out, in rage, and anguish.

But a mere instant before the tentacle could descend, a white-hot streak of light lanced through the air and slammed into the shapeshifter's chest, tearing a fist sized hole straight through to the other side.

The woman stumbled, and fell, but did not die. Ahri knew it would soon recover, and so quickly helped Irelia to her feet. The two scrambled away a fair distance before Ahri's sharp ears heard the woman coming up behind them. She whirled, foxfire in hand. She saw her leap up, clawed appendage poised to strike, chest wound already closing. But again, a fraction of as second before the blow came, another white streak of light slammed into her collarbone, throwing her away.

Ahri's eyes were able to follow the bolt of light to the source this time.

To her left, not far off, was the golden-haired girl from earlier, sprinting in their direction. Clutched in her hands was a rifle, much like the ones carried by the black-armored soldiers, but something was markedly different this time. It seemed to glow as if lit from within, a white, radiant light seeping through the folds in the metal, around the rivets, and from the barrel. The whole weapon was light-charged.

The girl knelt and fired again, this time catching the shapeshifter in the right leg around the knee, causing her to topple over in mid stride. Irelia and Ahri reached her as she pulled back the lever, ejecting a spent, lightly glowing bullet casing. Ahri, completely exhausted from her near-death experience, her wound still not quite healed, collapsed to hands and knees near the blonde-headed girl.

"Who. . . the hell is that?" Ahri asked both the girl and Irelia through ragged breaths.

"Zyra," The girl replied, aiming down the sight of the rifle again. "Dangerous, so I hear." She fired again, the rifle's report followed by Zyra's anguished cry as she was again taken off her feet.

"What does she want with you two?" Ahri snapped, a touch more angrily than she intended.

Irelia raised an eyebrow at Ahri. "Us? I assumed she was after you."

Ahri shook her head, but could not manage to form more words. Irelia hauled her to her feet. "Don't know about you," She said with a small smile as she draped Ahri's arm over her shoulder. "But this seems sort of familiar."

Ahri found herself returning the smile despite the circumstances. "We've got to stop meeting like this." She agreed.

"Get going Irie," Lux said. "I can handle this."

"Lux, don't underestimate her. She nearly killed Ahri and me both."

But the girl wasn't listening. She pulled the lever of the rifle and fired on Zyra again, but she was ready for it this time. She raised her left forearm, and the leaf-like growths on it splayed out into a rough shield that stopped the light-charged bullet cold.

"Stop this," Zyra said to Lux. "I have no quarrel with you. I seek only the one who wears the white cloak."

Irelia and Lux turned to look at Ahri. She gaped under her hood.

"Me?" Ahri asked, puzzled.

"Stand aside," Zyra said. "And no harm will come to you."

"Sorry!" Lux said as she winked cutely. "But it's just not the Demacian way to let those in danger go unaided!"

"So be it," Zyra said with a cackle. She moved on Lux, but she did not seem particularly worried by this. With lightning speed, Zyra closed the distance between her and Lux, and her right arm twisted into a long, wicked, thorn-like blade that she brought down in a massive overhead strike. Lux moved the rifle perpendicular to the blow to parry, but the blade cleaved through it so easily, it might've been made clay.

"Lux!" Irelia said, moving towards her. But she needn't have worried. Lux staggered back, with the blow, but was not to be defeated easily.

The two halves of the charged rifle dimmed, their magic fading away. With a coy smile, Lux swung the half of the rifle in her right hand, the half that contained the heavy wooden stock, right at Zyra's temple, where it connected solidly, throwing her back.

Discarding both halves if the rifle, she unhitched a small baton from her hip and sprinted towards the disoriented Zyra.

"Back to your flowerpot, you overgrown dandelion!" She said as she launched bolts of light from the end of the baton.

They struck Zyra about her upper body, causing her arms to open wide, giving the light mage an opening. She jumped up and planted a booted foot into Zyra's midsection and kicked off and away, flipping over backwards. As she righted again, she threw a ball of twisted light into her that detonated in a flash of blinding white light upon impact.

Lux landed lightly as Zyra shrieked in pain and anger.

"Hard to kill as a weed," Lux said with a mock frown. "And about as ugly, too."

Zyra smiled evilly, clearly enjoying Lux's spirit. She glanced over at Irelia and Ahri and threw a handful of the tiny seeds that scattered all about their feet, digging themselves into the ground like tiny insects.

Before Ahri could react, the ground erupted into geysers of brown dirt, writhing vines pushing their way out of the soil, the accelerated growth a twisted visage of nature. The force tossed Ahri and Irelia onto their backs, separating them. Only one of the things surfaced near Ahri, and it flicked grotesquely through the air above her head, easily a foot taller than her at her full height and about a wide around as she was. At its tip was a wicked claw that glinted like metal in the sun.

The vine descended on her, its claw pointed down like the beak of great bird. Ahri rolled onto her side and heard the claw dig deep into the earth where she had been a mere moment before. She saw it come down again, and rolled onto her other side, avoiding it narrowly. She moved onto her back and shot a burst of foxfire at it, causing it to ignite and screech in pain. She flipped to her feet. Her chest wound still gave her some trouble, but she mentally pushed the pain away. She spotted Irelia, who had been surrounded by at least a dozen of the scythe-tipped plants.

She needn't have worried about her safety, however, as Irelia simply raised her arms, her weapon rising with them. The four blades disengaged themselves from the red, center circle and arrayed themselves around Irelia's body. They then whirled about her like the blade of a circular saw, eviscerating the twisting vines that surrounded her. After a short moment, the now-motionless vines toppled over as one.

Ahri had to admit that she was impressed.

Nearby, Lux and Zyra were at it again.

Zyra drove the point of her blade-arm towards Lux's heart, but she crossed her arms in and x in front of her, and a small shimmering wall of light stopped the blade cold. The edge sparked against Lux's shield as they stared each other down, faces inches apart.

"You are as bothersome as an insect," Zyra said, leaning in harder against the shield. She cracked a wry smile. "And about as ugly, too."

She shoved hard on her blade, forcing Lux back. She twisted her arms into tentacle form and crossed them in front of her, to try and split Lux in half. Those tentacles were like bolts of lightning, and an ordinary person would have been cut down before he knew what was happening.

But Lux was far from ordinary. She leapt up and twisted, swinging her legs up and around, out of reach of the crossing limbs. She touched down inches in front of a startled Zyra and spun in place, landing a wicked kick on Zyra's face.

Zyra went down hard, unconscious. Lux turned back to Ahri and Irelia, both with mouths agape. "How was that, Irie? Ninetails? Pretty good huh?"

Ahri vaguely registered that Lux had been referring to her as Irelia spoke up. "Lux. . . what _was_ that?"

She shrugged. "That? In Demacia, that's what we like to call a good, old-fashioned butt-kicking."

Irelia shook her head. "No I mean, I just had no idea you were so . . . capable."

Lux winked again while she said, "Standard training for all enlistees in the Demacian military, mages and spies like me included."

"I grow tired of your idle chatter!" A voice snapped, turning all three heads to look at a rising Zyra. She smiled maliciously. "Humans are so stubborn. Your kind really needs to learn when to _quit!_"

With this, she snapped her arms into the soil, and gave a cry of exertion. The ground heaved and pulsed as it had earlier, just before the massive vines had burst from under the grove of ruined trees.

And, just as then, the ground erupted into a mass of wriggling tendrils. Ahri shifted her stance uneasily, trying to not be on top of one when it emerged.

Before long, she was so surrounded by the things that it was akin to standing in a field of wheat, able to see neither Lux nor Irelia. She called to them, but she was drowned out by Zyra's cry. Ahri braced, foxfires flashing in both palms, expecting the vines to attack. But instead, they converged as one on Zyra's position. Ahri gasped as they surrounded her in sort of cocoon, writhing around her in like a colony of worms.

Ahri wrinkled her nose. And _she _was disgusting?

The mass of tentacles began to take a large, humanoid shape that loomed over the three women. It was easily three times Ahri's own height.

Ahri called her orb to her. "No one in Ionia airs on the subtle side, I see." She observed.

Irelia and Lux grinned in agreement, and the three charged the Zyra's massive construct.

Zyra bade her enormous vine-suit to sweep one of its massive tentacles across the ground in an attempt to crush them. Ahri, who was closest to it, flipped over it effortlessly. Irelia opted instead to slice it in half mere moments before it reached her and Lux. Enraged, the beast swung its other arm at the group, but Ahri was already too close, and simply ducked under it.

Irelia and Lux weren't so lucky. They hadn't anticipated a counterattack so quickly, and so were taken off guard. Irelia brought up her blades to defend, but was still knocked a fair distance away when the appendage connected. Lux held her baton high in the air and shielded herself. The massive tentacle struck it and bounced away, leaving Lux unharmed.

Ahri reached the foot of the massive creature, and, noticing her, it tried to crush her underfoot like an insect. Its shadow loomed overhead, but Ahri nimbly ducked her head and stepped out of the way, behind the beast.

It crashed down behind her with a boom, showering her with bits of earth. She moved before it could try again, jumping onto the back of one of its legs, grabbing handfuls of the thick vines. She grimaced as they squirmed under grip, but she did not let go.

She climbed, hand over hand, gritting in concentration. It roared and shook, trying to dislodge her from its body. But Ahri only dug her manicured nails deeper into its body.

She reached the middle of its back, and the creature reached back with its remaining tentacle to try and pry her off. Ahri grunted in frustration as one snaked around her calf, yanking at her roughly. She held on tightly, but the tentacle was stronger than her by far. It tore her free, dislodging clumps of vines.

It held her upside down in front of its face as she struggled in its grip, holding onto her skirt to keep it from sliding down.

She glared into its crude face that was little more than a clump of twisted vines atop its shoulders.

The head split apart and roared in Ahri's face, through some mechanism Ahri didn't understand. Her hair was blown back with the breath of the creature's roar, but she only stared back defiantly. Below, she heard Lux call out.

"Ninetails!" She said as she ran towards the monster. "Don't move! I'll get you down!"

"As if I had a _choice _. . ." She muttered.

Lux spun her baton, and pointed the open palm of her free hand at Ahri. The beast looked down at her and roared in her general direction, but it was already too late. Lux's palm flashed, and from it shot a radiant ray of light, blinding to Ahri's eyes. It was colored white, with rainbow colors around its edges. It was beautiful, and yet deadly; it lanced through the tentacle holding Ahri's leg like a knife through butter, and Ahri could feel the heat of it on her skin.

With the appendage severed, Ahri was at gravity's mercy. Before she could hit the ground, she reached out and felt her hand brush the creature's body. She held fast, and found herself clinging to the beast's abdomen this time.

The creature, or the woman within, became enraged and tried to shake her off, but with its tentacles severed, there was little it could do.

Ahri swung herself up its body to its shoulders, where she balanced as the beast tried to shake her off. She conjured foxfires in both hands, and rained them upon its head in a fiery barrage. Before long, it was crowned with a magical blue blaze, but it did not fall. Ahri could feel its anger grow as all around her, other tentacles broke off from the main body to snap and grab at her, and she cried out as her arms were tangled within them. She tried to pull free to no avail; the vines' grip was like iron.

Below, she heard the clanking of metal plates as Irelia approached. With a single sweep of her four-bladed weapon, the beast's left leg was severed, sending pitching over like a cut-through oak tree.

Ahri focused and fire raced up her arms, burning away her constraints. She flipped around onto its back moments before it struck the ground, narrowly avoiding being crushed.

The whole of the beast's body shuddered, the vines comprising it twisting and rearranging themselves under Ahri's fingers. They burrowed into the earth.

"Oh no you don't!" Ahri said, tearing out handfuls of vines, as if that might stop them from escaping. They snaked around Ahri's arms and threw her away as had happened m.

Ahri landed hard, and looked up to see the tentacles reforming themselves into a massive, snapping vine like the ones Ahri had seen when Zyra had first arrived. It towered over them, seemingly unharmed.

Ahri growled in frustration. All their attacks were only making things worse. She realized that if she wanted to end this, she'd have to strike at the heart of the beast, or in this case, Zyra herself.

Her head snapped around as a beam of light burst forth from Lux's palm, shearing off a large portion of the enormous tentacle's trunk.

Irelia sprinted forward soon after, and seemed to race through the air like a bullet, becoming a blur of motion. Ahri could scarcely follow her movement as she dashed up to the middle of the twisting vine. She swung her blade around in slashes like flashes of light, and as she landed back on the ground, great sections of the vine had fallen away, bunches of cut tentacles falling writhing through the air.

Sections of the vine's spine-like infrastructure became visible, and Ahri saw her chance. She raised her left arm, and from it shot a string of foxfires that tore through the air and slammed into the enormous creature.

It roared again as it had as a humanoid creature, and toppled, no longer able to support its weight with pieces of its infrastructure in smoking ruin. Ahri rolled nimbly out of its shadow before she could be crushed.

When the massive beast struck the earth, defeated at last, a hole in it opened, and it forcefully expelled a dazed Zyra.

Ahri wasted no time. "Zyra!" She called as she strode over and hefted her up by the neck, staring into her eyes. "You made a mistake coming after me."  
She threw her to the ground and pinned her there, wrapping her slender fingers around her throat. She yanked the Essence from her, smiling as the green energy swirled up her arms. Zyra snarled in defiance, grabbing Ahri's face and shoving her off.

Ahri fell onto her backside, and jumped to her feet, expecting another fight. But Zyra had become as thin as a reed, slipping into a crack in the ground before Ahri could react.

Gone.


	8. Shadows

A man stood atop a low hill not far off, his sharp eyes watching the entire exchange from a safe distance from under the beak-like point on his hood. He smiled in amusement as the girl with the nine white tails and her companions, who looked like insects from this distance, defeated Zyra, forcing her to flee like a whipped child. He had been following the girl for two days now, and in that time, she had been attacked by two extremely powerful foes.

And that didn't add up.

In Talon's profession, coincidences didn't exist. If you were attacked twice in two days, someone wanted you dead. But Talon couldn't determine who would, or why.

On top of all this, she had just happened to run into Irelia Lito and Luxanna Crownguard in the middle of nowhere. Ionia was not a small island; the chances of that happening were miniscule at best.

Someone was pulling the strings here, and Talon was determined to find out whom.

A low droning noise sounded from behind the man, snapping him out of his thoughts. He turned, cloak of blades whipping around his calves.

A tiny black hole appeared in the air, distorting the air around its edges. As Talon watched, it quickly grew in size until its diameter was about six feet across. If he was surprised to see such a thing suspended in the air, he did not show it. Rather, he watched with rapt amusement as a large, armored figure stepped through. The morning sun shone off parts of the newcomer's silver breastplate and shoulder guards, forcing Talon to squint through the glare. The man approached Talon and looked down on him from his imposing height, eyes glowing red from behind a metal mask.

"Assassin." He said in greeting. His voice was cold and empty, like the whisper of wind through an ancient crypt.

"Zed," Talon said with a mocking bow. "To what do I owe the honor of this visit?"

"That is none of your concern. I have a task to complete, and I would thank you to stay out of my way."

Talon grinned, intrigued. "Why all the hostility? " He said coolly. "Could be we are looking for the same person."

Zed said nothing, but his head cocked to one side in curiosity. There it was; the sign Talon had been looking for. Without saying anything, Zed had confirmed that he was indeed looking for someone. Talon's smile widened as he looked out onto the mangled plain, patches of earth torn up by Zyra's vines. The girl with the nine tails and her two companions stood together, apparently engaged in conversation.

"One of those three, perhaps?" Talon prompted.

Zed grunted. "Do you know them?"

"Not personally, no. But the woman with the blue hair is Irelia Lito, captain of the Ionian Guard, and the blonde girl is Luxanna Crownguard, of Demacia."

"And the third?" Zed pressed, with poorly disguised interest, Talon noted. Zed appeared to be after the nine tailed girl as well. What Talon could not determine, however, was what Zed intended to do with her.

"Her, I do not know," He admitted. He paused before asking, "Why?"

Zed made no reply, but instead flicked his wrists downward, and two long, curved blades slid down the length of each arm with a smooth metallic ring before locking into place above his wrists. The blades extended over his clenched fists like the claws of a great beast, gleaming wickedly in the sun. Without hesitation, he started down the hill for the three figures in the distance.

He was stopped short by Talon's gloved hand on his shoulder.

"I'm sorry Zed, but I cannot allow this."

Zed turned to him, and his voice was low with malice as he said, "This does not concern you, assassin. Release me."

"I'm afraid it does. I need her alive." Talon replied.

"And I need her dead." Zed countered as he shook Talon's hand off his shoulder.

"Don't do this, Zed. It can't end well for you." Talon said calmly.

"You think them a match for me? Three women, hardly past childhood?"

"They aren't pushovers, Zed. Two of them are representatives of the League of Legends, and the third is powerful in her own right. But that isn't what I meant." He pushed his cloak back to reveal his own weapon, a long jagged blade that ran down the length of his right forearm, as sharp as any razor.

Zed chuckled, and Talon had the impression that he was grinning behind his mask.

"You would draw your blade in defense of this woman? A woman you do not even know?"  
"Yes," Talon said. "I would."

"An assassin with a code of honor. How. . . quaint." Zed said in amusement.

"Honor?" Talon laughed. "Not at all. Only fools pledge life to honor. But too, only fools would mindlessly slaughter those guilty of no crime."

"I care not whether or not she is guilty of a crime."

"Then why are you here?" Talon asked. His tone sounded genuinely puzzled.

"I was asked to kill her in exchange for a reward that was too great to pass up," Zed said as if it should have been obvious. "Just like you do, assassin."

Talon managed to hide a grin. This fool was easier to get information out of than one of Noxus' drunken bar goers.

"You may be a powerful ninja, Zed, but you'd make a poor assassin." Talon said.

"Oh?" Zed said, anger creeping into his voice.

"Assassins don't accept vague contracts, blindly killing whomever's name happens to be on it."

"This comes as a bit of surprise. I didn't think assassins much cared for the identity of their quarry." Zed said with some disdain.

"On the contrary, a _good _assassin does not take a contract without knowing the details of his target. More harm than good can be done by killing the wrong man. A surgeon must be precise in his cuts, or the patient dies by his hand, and not the ailment for which the surgeon was required in the first place."

"That is unusually poetic for someone of your profession." Zed said mockingly.

Talon shrugged. "It's true, all the same. It's a lesson I learned in Noxus. The network of nobles there was a tangled web; cutting the wrong strands might have collapsed the whole thing. My master was always careful to pick his targets carefully, and now, so do I."

"Are you saying that this . . . _girl _bears significance?"

Talon decided to give him something. "That's exactly what I'm saying." He said flatly. "But what that is, I do not know for sure. Don't do this, Zed. That's the last time I'm going to ask nicely."

Zed only response was to drop his arms into a ready stance and charge.

Talon was prepared. He stepped nimbly to the side and at the same time, grabbed onto the front of Zed's breastplate, yanking him forward. Combined with Zed's own momentum, the action sent the larger man falling to the ground.

Zed rolled onto his back and tried to jump to his feet, but Talon was there. He jumped into the air and landed on top of Zed, pinning him to the ground with his knees. He clamped his left hand around Zed's throat with his left hand and held the point of his blade to his mask's eye socket with his right.

"Who sent you here, Zed? What were you promised?"

Zed's only response was a shout of anger as he freed one arm from under Talon and slashed at his face with it.

Talon moved to avoid the arcing blade, but he lost his hold on Zed, who squirmed underneath him. Talon tried to still his movements by stabbing him through a non-vital area with his blade, but Zed's movements and his own unbalanced position caused him to miss, the blade slicing through Zed's bicep and into the earth beneath. He was thrown from Zed completely when the ninja struck him across the face with a fist in retaliation.

In an instant, Zed was on his feet, and for a moment, Talon thought that he would leap upon him as Talon had just done.

But instead, the great ninja said. "You are brave to stand against me, assassin. You deserve to draw breath for another day, I think."

Talon stood, spitting blood from a split lip. "A whole day?" He said smartly. "How gracious of you."

Zed didn't take note of his sarcasm. He clasped a hand around his streaming wound. "Even I cannot kill both you and the girl in my present state. But be warned, this is not the end."

With that, he opened another black portal in the air and stepped through, and was gone in an instant.

Talon shook his head after he had gone.

"Amateur," He said to no one in particular.


	9. Pavor Nocturnus

Ahri glanced downward at the now-lifeless mass of tentacles, nose wrinkling in distaste.

"I'd heard tales about that one," Irelia said from behind her. "But I never saw her in person, and I never wished to. Now that I have, I see why her name conjured such fear in those who spoke it."

Ahri turned to see Irelia planted her weapon in the soft earth at her feet and put her hands on her hips, shaking her head. "What a mess."

A muffled grunt of exertion from nearby had them turning their heads. A pair of arms protruded from under a collapsed vine and shoved it up and away, revealing the prone form of Lux as she pulled herself out from under it.

Getting to her feet, she kicked at it angrily. "Stupid bully," She said with a petulant "Humph."  
Ahri looked at her briefly. "Thanks," She said quickly, unused to expressions of gratitude. "For saving Irelia and me."  
Lux turned, eyes wide, smile bright. "Of course!" She chimed. "Luxanna Crownguard at your service!" She curtsied girlishly.

"Lux," Irelia said, a hand on Ahri's shoulder. "This is Ahri."

"Just Ahri," Ahri finished when Lux looked at her expectantly.

"Well just Ahri," She said, her turn taking on that of a scolding mother. "You should be more careful of the company you keep, or the people you make mad. Zyra here might have given you a lot more trouble if I weren't here to save the day." She glanced down at the husk of intertwined vines.

"Lux is right, Ahri." Irelia broke in. "What _did _she want with you?"

Ahri shook her head. "I don't know. She spoke about killing me and using my power or some such. I've never met her before in my life."

Irelia scratched her chin. "Strange . . ."

Lux looked up at Irelia, and the two seemed to have a silent conversation with only a glance. Irelia nodded and said, "Something else is amiss here. Not two days ago, I met Lux at the port near the capital. And now," She procured a small metal tool whose purpose was unknown to Ahri. "I'm getting a reading that we are in central Ionia. How could that be?"

Ahri scowled, also noticing that she was not where she should be. Weeks ago, she herself had departed westward from the capital, where she had had her run in with Akali and Shen. How was it that she could be here, now?"

"Well, it doesn't matter now. All that matters is that we're safe. And I suppose we also must thank you, Ahri, for assisting us in dispatching those soldiers."

Ahri remembered the black-armored men. "Yes," She said. "Who were they, anyway?"

"Noxians!" Lux said with a childish sneer. "That's why I'm here in the first place."

Ahri's eyes narrowed in alarm. She knew about the Noxians, But she didn't know why they were here.

Irelia caught the confusion in her eyes and said, "Lux mentioned she was a spy, yes? She came here to observe the Noxian occupation of Ionia's southern provinces."

"Mm hmm!" Lux said proudly. "Just watch this! Active Camouflage!" She raised a hand and the light around her seemed to twist and bend, and before long there was nothing remaining of Lux save for a slight shimmer in the air that one would miss unless he was looking for it specifically.

Ahri raised an eyebrow and turned to Irelia, vaguely registering a huff of irritation from Lux at being ignored. "What are Noxians doing in Ionia?" She asked.

It was Irelia's turn to adopt an expression of puzzlement. "They invaded Ionia, no more than a few weeks ago. The defenders were totally unprepared; we lost those provinces in days. Surely you knew? I mean, how could you not?"

"I. . . I must have forgotten." Ahri stammered turning away, arms crossed.  
Irelia was silent for a moment, as was Lux as she shimmered back into the visible spectrum. Ahri could feel them watching, their eyes drilling into the back of her head. She was suddenly painfully aware of her nine tails and her pointed ears peeked out from under a hood that slid back to show her ebon locks.

"Who are you, Ahri? I mean who are you really?"

Ahri was silent.

"You've saved my life twice now, as well as Lux's," Irelia pressed. "You have my thanks for that. But there is something about you, something about you that isn't quite the norm. I sensed it when we first met, and I sense it now."

"I'm like you," Ahri said simply. "Just a girl trying to find her place in this world."

* * *

The darkness was absolute. Were an ordinary person to walk through the silent halls of this forsaken place, she might find herself completely blind, almost choking on the oppressive blackness as if it were a smothering blanket.

But Syndra was beyond the limitations of most beings.

She saw the world perfectly, albeit in a flickering, black and white image. Her glowing mauve eyes let her pierce the hazy veil of unnatural, eternal night that cloaked the place with minimal effort.

She giggled to herself. Was there anything she couldn't do?

She gently, almost sensually, placed a finger against the crumbling masonry of the wall beside her. She traced a wavy line along it as she passed, feeling for the telltale tug of magical energy that resonated through her surroundings.

Ah, there it was; a tendril of energy that snaked its way through the stone like a vein of silver in an old mine.

Syndra turned a corner in the darkness, floating silently above the cracked paving stones.

It was close now; the thrumming surge of energy flowing her body growing stronger with every yard she covered.

_Power draws us to it, _she said to herself, giggling in anticipation.

She felt more than saw herself emerge from the narrow hallway into a larger auditorium, the formerly stiff, stale air whipping into a chill breeze that ruffled her silver hair in the pitch darkness. She could see through her grainy, colorless night vision that the room was indeed quite large, with a spiral ramp running around its edge all the way up to the ceiling so far above her head that even her magic couldn't penetrate the darkness at such a distance to allow her to see.

The ramp was broken here and there, but she didn't need it. She floated down through the center of the room to the bottom where she knew her treasure lay.

Gently setting her feet down on the soft carpet of what she knew to be grass, somehow growing in the utterly lightless room, and paced patiently over to the large, gently humming crystalline structure.

"Hello there, my sweet," She hummed quietly, resting her fingertips on its surface. She smiled as dark energy from the corrupted nexus surged through her arms and into her body.

"Oh, Syndra," An older, softer female voice called down from above her. "You really shouldn't play with toys that aren't yours."

Syndra removed her hands from the nexus's surface so quickly it was as if it had become electrified. She whirled, scanning the room for the source of the voice.

She didn't have to look down. Slowly descending from the shadows that cloaked the ceiling was a woman, young and beautiful, wrapped in revealing clothing and clinging to a rope so thin as to be almost nonexistent.

Syndra sneered as she realized that it was not a rope at all, but a twined length of silk, as from a spider. She groaned in disgust as she noticed the four additional, twitching appendages protruding from the woman's back.

"I suppose you'll tell me this belongs to you?" Syndra snapped. "I don't see your name on it."

Elise, for of course it was she, chuckled softly before setting down before Syndra.

"Finders keepers," She said, waving a spindly, red-tipped finger in front of Syndra's nose, much to her chagrin. She tried to slap it away, but Elise had already retracted it, and pressing it against her cheek, said, "You really should respect your elders, Syndra."

"Have you got a reason for crawling in here, you freak? Or are here simply to irritate me to no end?" Syndra growled, irritated. She did not like to be reminded of her relatively young age.

"You should watch what you call me, Syndra. I just might overreact."  
Syndra turned around in a huff, raising her hands to the nexus and draining its energy.

"Why don't you use those extra legs of yours to get the hell away from me?" Syndra said.

"Oh come now Syndra, is that any way to talk to a business partner?"

"I never agreed to be your partner."  
Elise frowned mockingly and pretended to sound hurt. "You won't even consider my proposition, even after I told you where to find a deliciously unguarded nexus?"

"You neglected to mention I'd have to fight for it."

"Surely you can't be talking about those pitiful men who tried to protect it-"

"You _know_ who I mean, Elise," Syndra snapped.

"Are you telling me the mighty Syndra could not handle that little girl?"

Syndra huffed, attention still on the nexus. "I could have killed her, had I wanted to," She said with more certainty than she felt. "But the fact that you did not mention her tells me that I should not trust you. I've no wish to be a pawn in your schemes."

Elise became truly irritated now. "Fine," She snapped. "Be a child. I don't care. Just know that it is foolish to turn down an offer from my master. "

Syndra laughed out loud. "Oh indeed, your 'master'," She cackled, finally turning to face Elise. "The so-called 'spider god'. Puh-leese."

"You doubt his power?"

"Power is a bit of an overstatement, is it not? He's more like an insect that simply grew large enough to boss around the other insects. Including you, it would seem."  
Elise glared at Syndra as she raised a purple-gloved hand. Above it, purple light coalesced into the shape of Elise's master, a grotesque, horribly misshapen spider-like beast. Elise watched it shuffle around Syndra's palm through narrowed eyes.

"I have no need of your 'gods'," Syndra said proudly. "For what god could match the power I wield?"

With this, the image of a large boot came crashing down on the holographic spider-lord's head. Elise grimaced as several of its limbs twitched under the glowing image of the boot.

Syndra cackled. "That's what I think of your 'proposition', Elise. Now scurry along, insect."

"Spiders aren't insects," Elise snarled. "They're _arachnids!" _

In a flash of light, she shifted into spider form and leapt at Syndra, pinning her to the earth. Syndra growled, but was unafraid, expression of defiance clear on her countenance. Elise's clicking mouthparts were inches from her face, and Syndra could feel the hot, fetid breath against her cheek.

"You'll regret this," Syndra said menacingly, her voice still eerily that of the beautiful woman she had been moments before.

"Humph." Syndra said in reply.

Elise leapt from atop Syndra into the darkness at the edges of the room, and Syndra could no longer see her. She got to her feet and dusted herself off, and, convinced that Elise was gone, turned her attention back to the nexus crystal.

No sooner had she done this when she felt two hands clasp onto her shoulders.

"I knew you couldn't kill her," Elise whispered into her ear, her face so close to Syndra's that she could feel both the heat coming off her skin and the fine hairs upon it. "You were never meant to."

Syndra remained motionless, knowing that a wrong move could mean death.

"But I would have liked to have you," Elise continued. "You might find . . ." She ran her had almost sensually down Syndra's bare arm. "That we have much in common."

"Sorry," Syndra said coyly. "Not my. . . _type!"_

She spun and lashed out with a wave of dark energy, but it slashed only air. Elise was gone.

* * *

_The night was alight with the cool silver glow of the full moon, which hung solemnly overhead like a lonely grave keeper's lantern. _

_ The air was warm, laced with the smells of blooming wildflowers and the sounds of cicadas chirping in the tall trees that huddled together in the night, as if seeking one another's company. Early summer in Ionia. A familiar, yet beautiful sight to those that dwelled among Ionia's verdant fields and whispering forests._

_ But this woman cared not for that. The trees were obstacles that obscured vision, the empty fields devoid of purpose for her._

_ Her thin, lithe body was pressed against the rough bark of a towering tree that hugged the waterline of the small lake, nine white tails fanned out around her. They seemed to shimmer into invisibility with the silvery moonlight._

_ Just beyond the tree, on the shore near the water, a young man stared into his own reflection. The woman did not know him, nor did she wish to. There was only one thing he could provide her with, and she'd have it, one way or another. She stepped around the tree, the snapping of twigs underfoot alerting the man to her presence. He looked up at her, somewhat startled. But when he noticed that it was a beautiful woman and not a threat, his tense body relaxed, and a smile tinged his visage. _

_ And then, like water bursting from a shattered dam, Ahri's memory returned to her. She had been here before, in that same forlorn moonlight, seen this very same boy. She tried to stop her legs from moving, to turn from the place and run, never to return. She had made a mistake here before; she would not see it made again._

_ But her body refused to obey. _

_ Ahri panicked, willing herself to stop. But it was as if she were possessed, a puppet made to dance to another's tune. Not even her eyes were hers to control; the young man stood unmoving before her gaze, unwise to the danger that was upon him. _

_ She tried to call out to him, to warn him to stay away, but not so much as a whisper escaped through her slightly parted teeth. She screamed inside her own head as she felt her lips curve into a malicious smile. _

_ Wordlessly, her body moved close to the young man, draped its long arms around his neck. The boy was dumbstruck, never having known a beauty like Ahri's. His body trembled in anticipation of what Ahri's would do next._

_ His body shook as Ahri's fingernails, sharpened to diamond-hard points by her magic, pierced it, just under the ribs._

_ He looked down dumbly at the streaming wound, then into Ahri's eyes._

_ His face, body, went slack, and he fell to the ground, dead._

_ Ahri shrieked inside her own skull, hammering at the walls of her invisible prison with her will. But her body took no heed. It knelt in the pool of crimson blood welling from the man's chest wound, yanking glowing strands of essence from his cooling corpse. _

_ It wasn't necessary, the stabbing. The essence could be pulled just as easily from a living host, but this was always easier. Like pulling the stopper from a bottle and letting the rich red wine spill out of its own accord._

_ Much more satisfying, this way, Ahri's body seemed to say as it ravaged the young man's corpse of its own accord._

Ahri's eyes snapped open as she gasped for breath. She lay on her back in a cold sweat. She wrapped her arms around herself and managed to get her breathing under control.

Only a dream.

A canopy of stars shone above her, laced with the pink trails of the galaxy, a backdrop against the rustling pink cherry trees that stood guard over her. But this sky was somehow far more comforting that that of her dream; its cool serenity was like a splash of cold water on her face, and did much to relax her.

She had been dreaming of the time just after her transformation, when she had preyed upon lone humans, stolen their souls to further develop her human form.

But that wasn't her anymore.

Right?

She sat up. She scarcely remembered stumbling into this little grove of trees and falling fast asleep, so tired was she. She noticed that the moon was high in the sky; she had slept the whole day through, and half the night as well.

She noticed a small campfire not far off, Lux and Irelia sitting near it, talking in low voices. Quietly, she moved over.

Lux and Irelia looked up at her approach. Lux gestured for her to sit, smiling brightly. Ahri complied, sitting crosslegged near the flickering flames. Something about Lux's smile evoked an emotion in her she hadn't felt in a long time. She realized with a start that it was a feeling of trust. She shook her head. Maybe se really was becoming more human. An animal would never trust so readily, no matter how warm the smile.

She sighed. "You asked me earlier. . . asked who I was." She composed herself as the other two women looked on, curious. She had never truly told anyone about the truth about her human form, but these two had risked their lives to save hers. They deserved the truth, at least.

"Well. . . to start, I'm not really human."


	10. Onward

Ahri didn't think Lux could be more shocked if she had struck her across the face. Eyes wide, she leaned forward towards Ahri in interest.

"Wha-what?!" She asked incredulously. "If not human, then. . . then. . ."

Irelia motioned with a hand to cut her off. "Lux, please. Let the woman speak."

Lux huffed and shot her a glare but Irelia was already looking away, towards Ahri. Unlike her companion, she was the picture of composure. It was as if she had known the fact all along

"Go on, Ahri," She prompted. Finish what you were saying."  
Ahri smiled wistfully. "Well," She started after a pause. "I was born an animal. A fox."

The other two women looked at her expectantly, not satisfied with so little information.

She shrugged and said with a small laugh, "I guess there's not much else to say than that. I don't really know much about it myself. "

Lux couldn't contain herself any longer. That would explain the ears! And the tails! Ah! I knew there was something strange about you!"

Ahri glanced at her with a bemused expression. "That so?" She asked. "You see many people with nine tails?"  
"Lux, honestly!" Irelia snapped. "That's not polite."  
"It's fine," Ahri said passively. "I'm used to it by now." She looked off into the dark spaces between the trees. "You might even be surprised at how many people hardly even notice."

Irelia spoke up after a short silence. "Surely that's not all there is to the story? Is there nothing more you remember?"  
Ahri swung her gaze back towards the blue haired woman, and once again felt a strange sense of trust towards her. She shrugged.  
"It just an ordinary day, I suppose," She said with a sad smile. She hadn't thought about that day in so long. So much simpler, things had been back then. "I was hunting, and it was raining, I remember that. Everything was gray, hard to see, harder to smell. But I could hear everything. So that's when I heard the sound of metal ringing. I didn't know what it was then, that's why I followed it. Sometimes, I wish I hadn't . . . I . . ."

She trailed off, tears suddenly coming to her eyes, hot and stinging. Crying? Why? Did she regret this existence?

Lux and Irelia looked on, concern plain on their countenances, words of sympathy evading their lips. Ahri wiped her eyes. She couldn't stop the story now.

"Blades. It was the sound of blades hitting each other. When I got there. . . well, it was already long over. Who was even fighting? Ionia and Noxus? I don't even know.

"Anyway, there was this man there, a mage. I . . . don't know why, but I felt. . . drawn in. But he was dying. And when he went. . .I became this."

She pointed to her own face, and traced a line across the whisker marks on her cheeks.

Irelia was silent for a time. "I've heard of things like this," She said softly at last. "People like you aren't completely unheard of. Humans with characteristics of animals appear quite often in folklore and such all the time; I just never expected to see anyone like you.

"When we met at the Festival of Fire, I felt something different. But I had no way of knowing exactly what. When I saw your ears and tail yesterday, I knew I was looking at someone the likes of which the world hadn't seen in a very long time."

"So now you both know. Know I'm a freak; not human, not animal; an outcast to both."

She looked into the flickering flames, realizing for perhaps the first time, the truth in those words. There really was no place for her in the world, after all.

She felt a gentle hand on her shoulder. "That's not true," Irelia said softly. "You risked your life to save Lux and me, when you could have just walked away. You displayed more courage yesterday than I've seen in quite some time, and that's no small feat Ahri."

Lux, who had so far been silent, spoke up now. "Yeah!" She exclaimed, hopping up onto her knees. "You tackled Zyra like she was nothing! I mean, even I was scared a little. You might be as brave as my big brother Garen!"

That brought a smile to Ahri's face. She didn't know who Garen was, but seeing Lux's enthusiasm, all to cheer her up, made her happy in a way she hadn't been in a while.

"I know you've lost much, Ahri," Irelia told her. "I knew that too, when we first met. "

Ahri's heart skipped a beat. If she knew that, just what else did she know? Did she know her bloodstained past? If she did, she did not hold it against her, it seemed.

"But it's all right," Irelia continued. "You can stay with us, if you like."

Ahri hesitated, gaze wandering into the dark between the trees. The proposition was tempting, to be sure. But danger seemed to follow us wherever she tread; would she be putting these two in danger by travelling with them? An what if her past deeds should come to light? Would they shun her, turn on her? But that was selfish, wasn't it? She deserved to be punished with solitude for what she had done.

All these thoughts raged inside her skull, as her thousand yard stare deepened. Above, pink light tinged the horizon with the coming of the rising sun.

Irelia stood and held a hand out to the girl, stirring her out of her the dark thoughts she did not wish to share.

"Come on, Ahri," She told her. "It's alright. Whatever has happened in the past, your fight's done now."

Ahri smiled and nodded assent. She was right. It was time she moved ahead, and maybe, just maybe, she could forgive herself for her own deeds. She took the hand and stood straight in the dawn light.

"Let's go, then!" She said enthusiastically.

Irelia and Lux nodded back in unison, and the three set out as one.


	11. Failing Light

The tangled mess of a battlefield long at her back, Ahri marched on along the sprawl of the verdant plain, and, despite the heat of the summer sun on her skin, she found herself in good spirits.

"_This must be how it feels to be normal," _she thought to herself. _"This must be how it feels to not fear death at every turn."_

Adding to her happiness was the fascination at seeing something else with which she was utterly unfamiliar; mountains. The monolithic peaks dominated the skyline, and though Ahri could tell they were still far away yet, it filled Ahri with awe in the way they still felt commandingly close.

She looked at the peaks now, as she had been over the course of the last few days, wondering what lie there. Irelia had informed her that the nearest town was nestled at their base, and, if time permitted, they might ascend them to their peaks. Having never been so high in her entire life, she wondered what the world might look from there, and if a god looking down upon the world might see it the same way.

So lost in her thoughts was she that she hardly noticed the slight flicker in her peripheral vision. It was as if the outline of the mountains jumped up slightly, almost as if she were seeing shimmering waves of heat rising from them, but not quite. Each time she tried to look at it directly, the phenomenon ceased to be there, reappearing in her peripheral again.

The curious event did not trouble her immensely, in any case. She was far too busy enjoying the fresh open air. She glanced over at her two companions.

They did not seem as upbeat as she. Their metal armor glinted brightly in the sun, and Ahri could tell that the heat was uncomfortable for them. However, despite her urging, both refused to remove it.

"It's a symbol of rank and station," Irelia chided. "To take it off would be irresponsible."

After glancing at Lux, she only shrugged and said. "Silver's my color," She said simply, prompting a smile from Ahri, who said no more on the matter.

Instead, she asked about the world she knew so little about. Lux told her of her homeland of Demacia, a shining city of order and law and light, and Ahri immediately knew she wanted to see it someday. Lux and Irelia both also told her about the other lands of Valoran, the expansive, labyrinthine jungles that were so like and so unlike the woods of Ionia, the massive seas of sand that Ahri learned were called deserts, Demacia's border wastes that contained Noxus, and so much more. With each word, Ahri couldn't wait to leave the now-little island that had birthed her in order to glimpse the world that she was now learning was so much bigger than she could have anticipated.

The excitement was nearly enough to make her forget her guilt. Nearly.

And that first meeting with that shadowy figure was becoming more and more a mere dream, an ephemeral tapestry of frayed memories that might not have occurred at all if not for the small stone she still carried in her cloak pocket. She fingered it idly, feeling its cool smoothness, and wondered if she hadn't picked it up somewhere and imagined the whole episode.

Before long, the sun dipped low on the horizon, bathing the world in its amber glow. The three followed a narrow stream as it ran down a hill, and climbed carefully down a steep slope into a narrow valley cloaked in shadow. Ahri gasped as she saw that the walls of the valley were cut by dozens of winding streams and waterfalls, white lines in the green and brown of the valley. They all ran into the little stream, and before long, it became a broad, racing river, with more types of fish than Ahri could count racing up and down its length.

As twilight gave way to night, the three sat down along its banks, and Ahri realized at once that she was extremely tired. She lay down on the soft grass and watched as the sky darkened overhead, turning from gold to pink to blue to black with the silver pinpoints of the stars.

She breathed deep and let the river's roar lull her to sleep, and the last thing she saw before she dropped off was the black outlines of the stars jumping and stretching, as if the stars were brightening and dimming in rapid succession.

The following day was indistinguishable from the previous one; Endless sunshine and a light breeze that ruffled Ahri's hair as she walked. None of the three talked much, however, as though they had all said everything worth saying the day before.

This would not have bothered Ahri much anyway, but today, she was not paying much attention to either of them.

She couldn't shake a penetrating feeling of what she could only describe as paranoia, a gnawing nagging suspicion not all was right, though her sharp senses could not hear, smell, or see anything amiss, and indeed, Lux and Irelia were not similarly bothered.

All about her, the outlines of objects did not seem definite, concrete; they seemed to waver and disappear altogether when she was not looking at them directly, and shadows seemed to stretch beyond their set boundaries.

She was not particularly alarmed; the phenomenon was not very strong, just a distraction, was all. She kept it to herself, striking a conversation with her companions to take her mind off of it.

The following day, the sun's glow was masked behind a low hanging ceiling of gray cloud, and Ahri seemed the worse for it. The flickering outlines on objects in her peripheral vision was more exaggerated now, and she could not shake the feeling that people were following her, behind her, beside her. Yet, whenever she looked, there was of course no one there. Once, Lux, who was walking in front of her with Irelia, chanced to turn around while Ahri was looking off to her left. Seeing no one, she shook her head to clear it of the feeling, and, noticing Lux, gave a sheepish smile.

Lux frowned. "You alright?" She asked, concern in her voice.

"Huh," Ahri asked, trying to focus. "Yeah, I'm great! Just thinking to myself."

That seemed to satisfy Lux, who nodded and turned back around with a smile. But now Ahri was concerned, concerned that something was wrong with her. Still, she kept her silence, confident that she would be well when they reached the next town and she could rest for a day or two.

Things took a turn for the worse as midday gave way to late afternoon. She heard whispers, scraps of unintelligible words that reached her ears as if floating on the wind. She tried to ignore them, but they only grew louder, as if anxious to be heard. Shutting her ears did not deter them, nor did trying to speak over them.

The formerly awe-inspiring openness of the expansive plain no longer filled her with a sense of joy; she now felt exposed, like an insect under the gaze of a giant. She drew her hood up and pulled the cloak tightly about herself, sparking the concern of both Irelia and Lux, neither of whom had ever seen Ahri shrink away from anything, or expected to.

Irelia was about to speak, when Ahri caught the flash of a shadow on the ground nearby. It was an enormous shadow, as though made by a flying behemoth.

"Did you see that?" Ahri asked, frozen in terror. Lux and Irelia exchanged a glance.

"See what?" Irelia asked cautiously.

Ahri searched her eyes, and saw concern there, but knew she hadn't seen a thing.

"Nothing," She breathed. "Nothing at all."

"Ahri, are you well?" Irelia inquired, taking hold of Ahri's cloak. "You've been acting strangely of late."

"I'm fine," Ahri said with far more confidence than she felt. "I just need a break. How far are we from the city?"

"A few hours yet," Irelia informed her. "But it's nearly dark out. We'll stop here and reach it in the morning."

Lux nodded assent and knelt, gathering a few nearby sticks into a pile and lighting them with a concentrated beam of light. Soon they had a fair sized blaze going, and while Ahri was grateful for the heat, she would have preferred darkness. The flickering shadows seemed to jump out at her, as if possessed of some evil force.

Irelia removed a glove and felt Ahri's forehead. "No fever," She relayed. "Tell me, do you feel sick?"

Are shook her head no, she didn't, but something was wrong with her. She knew that now. She found that could not speak, either; for no words came when she opened her mouth.

Alarm was evident on Irelia's face as she turned to Lux.

Above, as the sun ceded its throne to the crescent moon, hell broke loose in Ahri's skull. The flickering outlines, the stretching shadows; they paled in comparison to what she saw then. Dirty, bloodied hands of the dead burst from the ground to claw at her. She recoiled in fear, tried to summon her magic to her, but found she could not concentrate over the voices in her head. Nearby, she heard Irelia call out, but she couldn't hear what she said over the cacophony of whispers, and watching her, it seemed she could neither see nor feel the grasping claws, immune to the terror Ahri was feeling. Overhead, black, formless shapes wheeled and screeched; they might have been birds, or demons; Ahri didn't know, but only she could see, only she could feel them, calling, screaming, piercing. Her heart raced in her chest, her brow beaded up with sweat, and at last when her courage was spent and she allowed herself to scream, she found that she could not; her jaw moved and her throat tightened, but no sound came. Terror overtook her, pouring into her limbs, coursing through her blood, and when at last it became too much to bear, she collapsed unconscious into a deep, mercifully dreamless, sleep.


	12. Sojourn

Ahri floated aloft of the wings of the void, her conscious mind seeing nothing, hearing, touching, smelling nothing. Her subconscious mind assumed this to be a sort of failsafe, shutting her mind down in the wake of abject terror lest it snap like a dry twig under a heavy boot, or shatter like fine china on the quarried stone of some forgotten keep.

She did not dream; and yet, out of the darkness, so quiet as to be almost undetectable, whispers reached out if the abyss to touch her mind. Flashes of faces, locations, presented themselves before fading once again into the shadow; never anything comprehensive or interpretable, but slowly, they and the whispers began to intensify, becoming louder, more vivid with each occurrence. It was as if they were calling her out of her slumber back into the land of the living.

She should have been terrified of the emptiness that was her world now, only interspersed with shattered visions. Though after the horror that had assaulted her mind not hours before, her subconscious found a sort of twisted refuge in that black void, and clung to it as a drowning man might cling to a piece of driftwood at sea. It did not want to face those horrors again, and fought like a cornered animal to keep from doing so.

But Ahri's subconscious mind, even the driving, unbreakable force of subconscious animal savagery, a holdout from her past life, could not contend with the force that compelled her to wakefulness.

Her eyes flicked open, and were greeted with the resolute silver disk of the moon, set like a gem in the great tapestry of white lights that was the night sky. Were her conscious mind present, it might be worried at how distorted her vision seemed; it was as though she were looking through a thin sheet of purple silk, or looking through violet-stained smoke.

Her conscious mind, however, was markedly absent; it was still stuck between sleep and wakefulness, in that all-consuming void that her mind had resigned itself to.

Her subconscious mind, however, viciously tore at the invisible bonds that held it, as a caged animal might tear at the walls of its prison. It was, alas, in vain.

Nearby, the sleeping forms of Lux and Irelia lay, their chests slowly rising and falling with the slow, steady breaths of those in deep sleep. Ahri ignored them. She had a task to complete. She stood and began running, her feet making no sound on the dew-tipped grass, whispers still echoing in her head, flashes of vision in her skull.

* * *

The moon, hanging like a solemn lantern in the sky, offered no clues as to how long she raced like a specter across the darkened grass of the sleeping earth; she would never know just how far she would go under its watchful gaze. In her current state, things like past or present held no real meaning.

After a time, she came to the place she somehow knew was her destination; a massive, inky black lake, surface shimmering silver in the moonlight.

Rising from the surface of the lake was something that at another time might have filled Ahri with awe. Seeming to stand atop the water itself was a city, appearing as though it was carved entirely from a single white stone and lightly lit with flickering orange torches that contrasted beautifully with the silver moonlight.

A massive stone bridge led from the shore to the city far in the distance. Not wasting a moment, Ahri stepped forward and dashed nimbly across the sandy shore of the lake onto the bridge.

A tiny part of Ahri's mind was filled with a sense of smallness and frailty at setting foot on the bridge, so impressive was its size. The white stone seemed to glow softly under the moon's light, giving it a ghostly, ethereal appearance. Aside from the sound of water lapping against the stone far below and the sound of insects in the warm night air, not a sound could be heard, nor was there any movement to be seen anywhere on the bridge's considerable length.

Then, something caught Ahri's eye. A dark shape stood alone in the moonlight, marring the otherwise pristinely flat surface of white stone that made the bridge. She squinted to sharpen the image. At first, she thought it was a statue of some sort, or another structure. But as she watched, it rippled like a reflection in a pond.

It was a person, his cloak ruffling in the breeze.

However, Ahri was beyond caring, let alone fearing the figure. He would stand aside, or she would kill him. Simple.

The figure made no effort to move as she walked towards it in a controlled, deliberate pace, the heels of her shoes clicking on the polished stone of the massive bridge.

At last, Ahri approached the man. Though not possessed of a particularly intimidating build, he was still taller than Ahri by several inches, and so she had to tilt her head to look at him. It was in vain, however; the purple hood the man wore obscured most of his face, leaving only a roguish half-smile visible.

"Stand aside," Ahri said flatly, in a voice that was less than familiar to her own ears.

The man's smile broadened, white teeth flashing in the wan moonlight. A breeze blew across the lake, ruffling Ahri's hair and the stranger's cloak. The sound of metal clinking together could be heard, and as Ahri glanced down she saw that several wicked looking blades adorned the ends of the man's cloak.

"What a pleasure it is to finally meet face to face," The man replied coolly. "Although, I wish it had been under better circumstances."

Ahri's bored expression did not change, nor did she register the fact that the man seemed to know her. The dominating will inside her mind cared not for that. She brushed past the man without a second word.

"You should run now, little fox," The man called to her without turning around. "No. . . no, that's not right," He added. "I'm not really speaking to the fox now, am I?"

Ahri, or the force that controlled her, spun her around to face the man. But the figure was no longer there.

"Is it not polite to do one the honor of telling him with whom he is speaking?" A voice rang out from behind Ahri, in the direction she had been originally been facing. Ahri whirled in surprise, and saw the man crouched on the stone guardrail of the bridge, cloak fluttering about him. "I mean, the _real _you," he was saying. "Not the puppet you're speaking through."

Ahri felt her face contort into a snarl. "I do not have the time for this," She heard herself say. "Continue pestering me at your peril."

She continued on her way without sparing the man a second glance.

"So be it," The man muttered to himself behind her. "My blade does not like to taste innocent blood, but it must be so."

Too quickly for Ahri to react, Talon leapt from his perch atop the guardrail and seemed to fly across the stone between the two of them and grabbed Ahri's shoulder, spinning her roughly around to face him.

In one swift move, the blade on his right arm extended to its full length and pierced the flesh of Ahri's midriff, exiting through the girl's back.

**A/N: Please excuse the hiatus.**


	13. Puppet

Talon ripped the bloodied, serrated blade from Ahri's body, shoving her away with his left hand.

But she did not fall, as he had expected. She did not so much as cry out. Instead, she fixed Talon with a deathly glare.

Talon gave a humorless smile. Magically gifted or no, no human could remain standing after a blow like that. Whatever was in possession of this girl was nothing to be trifled with.

Before Talon's eyes, the ghastly wound glowed black and closed itself, fading to a pink scar visible through the tatters of bloodied clothing.

Ahri lurched forward in a flash, catching an unprepared Talon by the right wrist. She lifted him with strength that far surpassed any human's, and threw him bodily through the air.

Talon crashed heavily into the polished stones, rolling a short distance before flipping onto his hands and knees. As he started to rise, a crackling blue fireball slammed into the stone nearby. Talon froze and looked up at Ahri. Blue flames danced around her bared midriff, casting an eerie cyan glow on the girl.

"You need to wake up," Talon said to her in a low, controlled tone, as though he were speaking to a wounded animal, holding out a shaking hand. "Think! You know what it wants; what will happen if it gets it. You must be stronger than it."

He was speaking directly to Ahri now, hoping to reach the part of her consciousness that surely still lingered within her skull.

He caught a flash in her eyes, as if she had just woken from a dream. But then, as quickly as it had come, it was gone, replaced by the blank stare that had been in place previously. To Talon's surprise, Ahri's face split into a grin, and she actually _laughed._

"I did not expect an assassin to be so well-versed in _clichés,"_Ahri cackled. "This isn't a fairy tale. She isn't going to 'wake up' or 'come to her senses' unless I will it."

Talon grinned inwardly. So this was the true force behind this girl's actions. In pretending to be fearful and on the defensive, he had gotten it to reveal a bit about itself. If he could keep it talking. . .

"Let her go," He said, deliberately making his voice shake a bit. _Don't lay it on too thickly, he thought to himself._

Ahri, or rather the entity controlling her, raised an eyebrow. "I think not. When she has completed the job she agreed to, perhaps then she may have peace." Ahri cackled again.

"You'll kill her?" Talon inquired, nervous tone clear in his voice, probing for more information.

"No," Ahri said plainly. "I am a merciful god, and not one for false promises. That said, I tell you this now. Leave here, while you still draw breath. Interfere again, and you will wish I had only killed you. This, I promise." Ahri cackled again and stalked away.

Talon grinned as Ahri turned her back, dropping the loathsome coward act he had adopted in Ahri's presence.

"How interesting," He muttered to himself. With a nearly silent sound of sliding metal, his blade extended once more, and he stepped towards the retreating form of Ahri.

At that moment, he heard the sound of metal slicing through the air, and felt the pressure of the air behind him change as though something large was hurtling through the air. As fast and trained as Talon was, he could not duck before something hit him heavily from behind, and he was thrown to the ground. Before he could so much as curse, something heavy and blunt hit him in the back of the head, and he knew no more.

**A/N: These last two chapters were originally one, but it had a weird PoV shift between Talon and Ahri so I decided to break it up into two shorter ones. TL;DR, Two chapters for the price of one.**


End file.
